


you're the fire (and the flood)

by monroeslittle



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Children, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 11:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9606167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monroeslittle/pseuds/monroeslittle
Summary: “You have given us hope, Jyn,” said Mon Mothma, “and the Alliance is in your debt." She smiled just slightly. “If it’s still a fresh start you wish for, it’s yours.” She tilted her head, and her calm, guarded gaze was thoughtful. Searching. “Is that what you wish for?”AU. Somehow, they survive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a few things:
> 
> (1) I loved the original Star Wars movies when I was growing up, but I've never really explored the extended universe. I haven't read any of the books, haven't seen any of the TV shows. If you're looking for a story that feels very Star Wars-y, this is probably not the one for you.
> 
> (2) I wrote this to deal with all my feels after that movie. It got much longer than I intended it to be, and is basically just my long, cheesy, rambling imagination of how Jyn's life could have gone if everyone had lived at the end. You've been warned.
> 
> (3) Sorry about the typos! I'm a truly terrible editor. 
> 
> (4) Rating is for sexytimes, although there is some foul language, and mentions of torture.

The lights in the ceiling of the stolen Imperial shuttle were flicking with a kind of violence when they staggered up the ramp, and into the ship.

“Go!” Baze yelled, and he banged his fist on the side of the shuttle.

It began to rise.

Jyn used the wall for support to sink to the ground with Cassian. The shuttle lurched forward. She hugged him. The lights flickered tremulously around them. And, at last, she felt the low, nauseating pitch in her stomach when the shuttle abruptly made the jump to hyperspace, shooting far, far away from slowly exploding planet.

She’d seen it right on the horizon.

They’d used the superweapon her father had created. She’d seen it. And, in the moment right before a shuttle had lowered in front of her, she’d been certain that she was going to die by it.

“I need a bandage,” she panted. “Or an injection of bacta. Something.”

Cassian’s breath had grown labored.

Melshi was able to find a kit with a dozen bacta patches in a floor storage panel.

Jyn tugged up Cassian’s torn, bloody shirt. Her hands were shaky, and his torso was slick with blood, and she knew she was doing a shit job of applying the patch, but, finally, she got the patch to cover the gaping blaster wound. It would just need to hold him over until they got him to a tank. She flattened her palm to the patch, and bent her head, pressing her cheek to the top of his head.

“Did you get the plans?” Melshi asked.

She nodded.

He smiled. “Yeah?” There was a nasty, jagged cut across the bridge of his nose.

“Yes.”

“The force was with us,” Chirrut said.

It had been.

They force had been with them, and they’d _done_ it.

They’d saved the rebellion. They’d gotten the plans to the Alliance. They’d made her father’s death matter. They’d made his _life_ matter. At the thought of him, Jyn felt the prick of tears in her eyes. It wasn’t really sadness. It was sadness, and it was relief, and it was longing, was a feeling that swelled in her chest, and closed her throat, and made her smile.

She lifted a hand to grasp her necklace just because, feeling the warmth of the crystal.

She thought of K-2.

It had been his last, curt “goodbye” that had made her realize that she was going to die, too. Until that moment, she’d believed they could get to the plans, and escape with them. In a blink, he was gone, and she knew that her time was running out, too, that this was the last thing she’d do, and she wouldn’t allow herself to die until she’d done it.

But.

Somehow, they’d lived.

She brushed a hand over Cassian’s damp hair, and leaned in. “You with me?” If she was going to survive this, she needed him to survive it, too.

“I’m here,” he murmured, reaching up, and grasping her arm.

She had no idea what was going to happen when they returned to Yavin. To her. To them. In the war. She wouldn’t think about that now. They’d lost almost everyone who’d come to Scarif with them, but they’d done what they’d needed to do. They’d done it, and, for now, that was enough for her.

\---

Cassian was wheeled off as soon as the shuttle touched down on pad 7 of Yavin 4. The rest of them were in visibly better condition than he was, however, and were deemed fit enough to forgo immediate care. They had to answer to the council.

Jyn took the brunt of the interrogation.

Her explanation of everything that happened was met with a beat of silence.

“Did you get the plans?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that isn’t your concern,” Draven said, clipped.

She stared.

“Tell me, Erso.” His gaze was calculating. She clenched her jaw. If he was going to make her into the enemy, fine. “What did you _think_ would happen when you returned from this mission you sanctioned for yourself?”

“I didn’t think I’d live long enough _to_ return.”

Draven didn’t have a response to that.

“You have given us hope, Jyn,” said Mon Mothma, “and the Alliance is in your debt." She smiled just slightly. “If it’s still a fresh start you wish for, it’s yours.” She titled her head, and her calm, guarded gaze was thoughtful. Searching. “Is that what you want?”

\---

She was there when Cassian woke in the medbay. She watched him blink at the ceiling, and frown, and, slowly, seem to realize exactly where he was, and remember what happened. He noticed her. She gave him a small, soft smile in greeting, and he winced with the effort to sit up.

“Careful,” she said, rising up slightly from her seat.

They had put him in a tank of bacta for the night to assure a full, quick recovery. Still. It would be a couple of days before he was himself again.

“How are you feeling?” She let her gaze trace his face. “Should I get a droid?”

“I’m fine.”

She sat back. He definitely looked healthier. She was glad. She’d been worried about him when they’d landed, about how pale he was. She hadn’t liked how powerless it had made her feel.

Now, though.

Now she didn’t know what to do with herself. If he was going to be okay, was it awkward for her to stay? She’d never sat at anyone’s bedside before.

“The plans?” he asked.

She hesitated, and she knew by the look on his face that he saw, that he understood. She told him. The word _lost_ stuck in her throat, but he needed to know. The plans were entrusted to someone who was now in the clutches of Vader, and the Alliance had no idea what she’d done with them before her capture.

They had no idea if the plans were back in the hands of the Empire.

“They used it,” she said.

“What?”

“The Death Star. They used the Death Star. On Alderaan.”

He was silent.

“It’s gone,” she told him. “Completely.” It made her chest go tight with anger, and grief, and a kind of helplessness that she couldn’t do anything to relieve. In a blink, a _planet_ had been wiped from the galaxy. The peace she’d felt on the shuttle was gone.

The 2-1B droid saw that Cassian was awake, and was by the bed in an instant, assessing him, and ordering him about in a tone that brokered no argument.

He was irritated at the harassment.

She was tempted to smile.

He’d kissed her on the elevator. It seemed like something from a dream looking back. He’d thought they were going to die. She had, too. She hadn’t thought it through, had just acted on instinct. It hadn’t felt like a future. It hadn’t made her sad, or made her wistful. It had just been a kiss. He’d wanted to kiss her, and, in that moment, she’d wanted to kiss him, too, because he’d come back for her, because he’d made her want to live her life again, because she was going to die, and she wanted to kiss him.

If he’d thought they were going to live, would he still have leaned in?

2-1B finished drawing Cassian’s blood.

“You need to rest,” Cassian said, looking at her.

“Me?”

“You.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that. She’d cleaned up, gotten a change of clothes, and eaten, but she knew that her exhaustion was showing, and that without any grime on her, it was easier to see the bruises. “I’m not the one who spent the night in bacta,” she said.

“Precisely,” he said.

She sighed. “They gave me a bunk that’s the size of a cupboard,” she said.

“That’s the size they come in.”

“Sure.”

It was quiet.

“I’ll—”

“There’s more to do,” he said, interrupting her.

She blinked.

“This war isn’t over.” He swallowed. “If the plans _are_ lost, there isn’t an end in sight. And even if they find the plans, the Empire . . .”

“They offered me the position of corporal,” she told him.

“You’re a sergeant.”

“I was demoted,” she said, wry. If she wanted to stay, they wanted to have her. They’d been clear, though. They didn’t make a habit of rewarding reckless insubordination. If she could rein in her eagerness to buck any authority, she could join the rebellion with the station of corporal.

2-1B was back.

“I think I might,” Jyn continued. “Stay, I mean. I don’t exactly have anything else to do.”

It was the truth.

She hadn’t really planned on what she’d do after Scarif. Then again, she hadn’t done much planning in general in her life. It was how she ended up friendless in an imperial work camp. Now she had a chance at more. At better. She could have a plan. She could have _people_.

“We could use you,” Cassian said.

She nodded.

He held her gaze. For the first time since she’d learned that the plans were lost, she felt the strength of certainty again. She’d stay. There was more to do, and she’d help to do it. They’d see this war through.

She had just needed to be sure he’d wanted her to.

2-1B began to prod at Cassian to test his reflexes, and when Cassian dropped her gaze to glare at the droid, affection for him welled up inside her. She acted on impulse. She touched a hand to his shoulder, and brushed a kiss to his cheek. He looked at her. “Rest,” she said. “I will, too.” And she gave him a small, closed-mouth smile, and squeezed his shoulder

\---

She wanted to go in search of the plans, and was told in no uncertain terms that it was impossible. She wanted to argue, was tempted to ignore the orders of the Alliance, and do again what needed to be done. This time, though. It really, truly _was_ impossible. There was no clear path. If the princess of Alderaan had the plans on her when she was captured, they were already lost, and impossible to retrieve. They couldn’t know if she’d managed to hide the plans with a solider, civilian or droid. And even if they did have something to go on, Jyn couldn’t do anything on her own, and her friends weren’t in any kind of shape to help.

In the end, there wasn’t even time for her to _try_ to come up with some desperate, reckless semblance of a plan.

The plans were brought to base in a droid.

They were analyzed in a matter of hours. Pilots were called to meet, and chart a course of action. The mission was sanctioned.

\---

They were together in the medbay when the news came in. Cassian hadn’t yet been cleared to leave. Jyn’s heart stopped when the doors to the medbay were thrown open, but she knew the moment that she saw the face of the woman.

Chirrut smiled.

Bodhi just breathed a choked, tearful laugh.

Jyn’s gaze flew to Cassian, and she reached for his hand. Tears pricked her eyes. Her father had given his life to make this possible. He’d allowed the Empire to own him, had given up living a life that was worth living, and died without ever knowing if it would be worth it. It had been, though. It had been. Cassian squeezed her hand.

She beamed.

She looked at Chirrut, at Baze, and when she saw that Baze had tears in his eyes, too, she found herself laughing, and he pulled her into a hug.

\---

The rebellion was in need of new secret op members after a disastrous sabotage mission in the Outer Rim Systems.

Mothma felt Jyn was suited for such a role.

She was right.

Jyn fit with a group like the Pathfinders. They were guerrillas. They infiltrated, and laid to waste the strongest of defenses. Ransacked. Stole. Destroyed. They got in, got out, and didn’t waste time arguing about politics. It was the kind of warfare that she knew, that she was raised on, and thrived on. In the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin, it was more important than ever to attack the strongholds of the Empire to deplete their resources, and scatter their forces. Jyn was eager to help.

It helped that Bodhi was assigned to serve as a pilot with the Pathfinders.

The general in charge had asked specifically for him.

They had to train for _months_ to meet General Madine’s approval. He was supposedly a stickler, but it seemed that he liked Jyn, and Bodhi, too, that he approved of their mission to Scarif, and the “grit” that they demonstrated with their “refusal to surrender.” She learned from Cassian that the general had defected from the Empire, too.

They were placed under the command of Sergeant Kes Dameron.

She was skeptical of Dameron at first.

It turned out he was willing to circumvent orders occasionally, though. They were sent to liberate a collection of factories on Alpinn only days after the destruction of the Death Star, and were successful. At her request, they neglected to return directly after.

It turned out that K-2 had a backup.

The Alliance was in possession of old, decommissioned droids, but they were mostly junk. If they were going to bring him back, they were going to do it right. Jyn knew a market that sold stolen droids for parts, and she suspected it would have some KX-series droids. She was right. They bought a droid that needed only minor surface repairs.

It was couple of weeks before she was at base when Cassian was, too.

They uploaded K-2’s backup.

She forgot to breathe for a moment when his eyes flickered with light, and he turned his head.

“Erso,” he said.

The breath left her in a rush of relief.

“Why are you pleased? What have you done to me? Where is Cassian? Captain! What did you let her do to me?”

She’d never seen Cassian look that happy.

She waited until they had been tasked with a mission to talk to Dameron, until they were sitting quietly across from each other in the hull of a ship. “Thanks,” she said. “For.” She titled her head slightly in hopes that would be enough. He smiled, and that was enough, too.

\---

She was assigned a compartment in the small rebel base on Vrogas Vas. The base was temporary, was place for the Pathfinders to recuperate, gather new supplies, and receive their orders between missions until a new, central base could be established. They didn’t spend much time at the base, and, when they were stuck there, she didn’t spend very much time in her small, windowless room. She could never sleep much at night. She slept for a handful of hours at best, and when she woke from a nightmare in her cupboard, breathed in gulps of stale, forced air, and felt like the walls were closing in, she left.

She wandered.

She learned the layout of the base by heart, practiced old drills in the empty training center, and wandered the hanger, pocketed discarded circuits, and CPUs, and casings.

\---

The assignment was to infiltrate the base of operations on Bogg 7 to liberate a scientist. They weren’t given details on her work. Lieutenant General Naroscotti was the officer in command at the base, and they were given a profile of her, a general facility layout, and an estimate of the numbers at the outpost.

It wasn’t very much to go on.

They’d gone on less.

Because it involved classified intelligence, they were working with an Alliance intelligence officer.

It figured that Chirrut was going to decide to join the mission, too, and Baze with him.

Neither of them had joined the Rebellion in any real, official capacity, yet they stayed at the base, and joined in missions, and Jyn had yet to figure out how, exactly, they had wrangled that arrangement. She supposed it helped that Chirrut had become a kind of mentor to Skywalker. It wouldn’t have surprised her either to learn that the Alliance was unable to argue with Chirrut any better than the rest of the world.

“Joining us?” Cassian asked.

“I go where the Force takes me,” Chirrut said.

They landed without incident, and were able to move easily through the city. The moon was bitterly cold, affording them the ability to hide their identities in dark, heavy clothes. They cased the base, and got in, allowing K-2 to download the information they needed to locate Professor Tarla Redrun in a lab at the back. They were questioned only a handful of times. Security at the outpost was laughable.

There were guards at the entrance of the lab, of course.

“You aren’t authorized to be in this sector,” said a Stormtrooper.

“I’m not?”

“Who are you?”

Chirrut cut the trooper’s legs out from under him, and spun, taking out both of the guards in five seconds flat.

The lab was humming with quiet, concentrated work.

There was a droid that Dameron shot before it could say a word. There were a handful of technicians, and Tully, Gabr, and Sutton had blasters on them immediately. And there was a young, dark-haired woman with glasses. She stumbled off her stool at the sight of them, tripping, and falling into a counter, knocking off a tray of glass test tubes. She gaped her mouth like a fish, and, suddenly, shoved her hands in the air.

“Professor Tarla Redrun?” Jyn asked, heading for the woman.

“Yes?”

“We’re here to get you out.”

“I—what?”

They knocked the technicians out with the butts of their blasters.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Redrun said.

“Did you miss the part where we’re liberating you?” Gabr said, raising his eyebrows.

“You _can’t_ ,” she said.

“Do you _want_ to be here?” Jyn asked, incredulous.

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You’re right,” Cassian said. “You don’t.” He jerked his hand at Dameron.

“You don’t understand!” Redrun said.

Dameron took him by the collar of his shirt.

“They have my sister!” she exclaimed. “My _sister_! She as good as raised me, and they’ve got her, and they’ve got her boys, and if I leave with you, they’ll kill them! You have to understand that I—that I can’t. _Please_. Just leave now, and there’s a chance they won’t—”

“Where are they being kept?” Jyn asked.

“What?”

“Is your sister at this outpost?”

“I—yes,” she stuttered. “Yes. I’m allowed to see them once a—”

Jyn cut her gaze to Cassian. He was the senior ranking officer on this assignment. It was his call to make. If they did this, Madine would surely have something to say. It was going off mission without approval, and the general had proven to _dislike_ it when Jyn disobeyed mission objectives. But. Sometimes, they needed to make a call in the midst of an assignment.

“K-2,” he said.

The droid had downloaded the complete base blueprint.

“Sector 7,” K-2 said. “Would you like to know by how much this lowers our chance of success? It’s a lot.”

“Dameron, you’re responsible for the professor,” Cassian said. “She is the priority. She is who we came for her. Get her out. Sutton, get to Rhee on the commlink. If he hasn’t gotten the outpost rigged to blow, do what he needs to help. We aren’t leaving the Empire with an outpost worth keeping. Jyn, you’re with me.”

“We have company,” Baze said.

They had to fight their way out of the lab.

In the corridor, they split.

“Time to go, Professor,” Dameron said, dragging her towards the sector’s back entrance.

“I—”

“Go!” Jyn said.

Sector 7 was on the very far side of the complex. In the time it would take them to reach it, security was going to guess where they were headed, and they’d be ready for them. Jyn pushed the thought away.

“Do we have a way out once we get in?” Cassian asked.

“There is access to the roof,” K-2 said.

On the commlink, Cassian told Bodhi to get the ship to the roof, and be ready to gun it.

They blasted their way around the corner, and took the stairs.

The blare of alarms was deafening. There were troopers at the entrance to Sector 7, but they broke the line of them, and made it into Redrun’s family’s quarters. Jyn knew Redrun’s sister as soon as she saw her.

“Who are you?” asked the woman.

“We’re with the rebellion,” Jyn said, “and we’re here to get you out.”

She nodded.

She was older, and had a strong, stubborn set to her face that her sister’s younger, frightened expression hadn’t possessed.

There were three little boys with her.

K-2 was right about access to the roof. They had troopers right behind them when they burst onto the roof, but the ship was right in front of them, and the ramp was down, was waiting for them. Jyn scooped up one of the boys, and sprinted

Bodhi was lifting up before the ramp had closed, and they took off in a rain of red blaster fire

Jyn watched Redrun embrace her sister with a sob. The boys circled them eagerly, pushing into the hug, and clutching at their mother, and at their aunt, clucking their names, and the small family ended up in a knot on the floor Jyn’s smile was shaky when she drew her gaze up finally, and looked at Cassian.

She was full to bursting in that moment with what they’d done, with the urge to smile, and to laugh, with real, honest _elation._

His smile was soft, and, after a beat, he nodded his head towards the back of the ship.

She skirted the family, and followed him.

“Let’s look at your arm,” he said.

“I’m fine.” She took off her jacket with a wince. “It _grazed_ me.”

Her shirt was torn from where she’d been _barely_ struck, and he ripped the material to widen the opening, to allow him to fit a small bacta patch over the cut. His brow was tight with concentration, and his hands were steady when he smoothed the patch carefully down. She sighed at the warm, healing tingle of the bacta.

“Better?”

She nodded.

He was close to her in that moment. She could feel the warmth of him. He hadn’t taken his hand from her arm yet.

She met his gaze.

He reached out tentatively, and stroked the backs of his fingers clumsily against her cheek.

She pushed up, and kissed him.

It was fast; she didn’t even think, pressing the kiss to his lips, and pulling away again to look at him.

His gaze searched her face.

They surged in together. His hands cupped her face, and she stepped in closer to him, couldn’t ever get close enough. He tasted like coffee. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he backed her toward the wall. Her nose bumped his nose, and laughter got catch in her throat, and she opened her eyes to look at him when broke the kiss with his smile. She liked the shape of his smile against her lips. She kissed him.

He pushed his hands into her hair.

Her hands were greedy on his back, slipping under his jacket, and skating up, curling her fingers in the material of his shirt, and starting to tug it up.

“Oh!”

Startled, she tore her lips from his.

“I’m sorry!” It was a flustered, wide-eyed Redrun. “I didn’t . . .”

“It’s fine,” Jyn said, flushed.

“What do you need?” Cassian asked, stepping away from Jyn, and turning to face the professor.

“I was hoping you could tell me what’s going to happen next. I mean, I know you’re with the rebellion. But I don’t know what the rebellion want with me unless it’s . . . to do what the Empire wanted me to do?”

“Our job is extraction,” he said.

“Right,” she said.

“We’re heading to Yavin 4,” Jyn said, stepping in. “You’ll be safe. If you want, I can tell you a little about what to expect when we arrive.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure.” She moved around Cassian, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, and looking away quickly, touching at her hair like she could fix the mess he’d made of it. “Can _you_ tell _me_ about what exactly you’ve been doing for the Empire?” she asked.

\---

She showed the boys the coin in her palm. “See it?” They nodded. She closed her fists, and turned her palms facing down. “Don’t take your eye off it,” she said. Slowly, she moved her fisted hands over each other one way, and the other. “Okay.” She smiled. “Now which hand has the coin?” She held her fists out to them for them to choose.

The oldest was quick to point at her fisted right hand.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Me, too,” said his brother, leaning to look more closely at her fists.

“You’re really, _absolutely_ sure?”

“Yes!”

She opened her hand to reveal that the coin wasn’t there. They yelled, and hopped about wildly with excitement, and demanded that she do it again, do it again, do it again. She did, showing them which hand the coin was in, moving her fists this way, and that, and offering her fists for them to choose.

They chose wrong again.

She glanced up while they shouted, and found Cassian looking at her with warm, steady eyes.

She could feel the pink flood her cheeks.

One of the boys grabbed her hand to examine it closely, and she flexed her fingers for him, and laughed.

\---

They ate dinner in the raucous base canteen that night. Everyone was flush with the success of the mission, with the ease of what they’d done, and how it’d been so clearly a good, right thing to do, and they claimed a table in the corner of the canteen to enjoy their victory. They deserved a good, happy night. They’d earned it. The whole meal through, Jyn was aware of the fact that Cassian sat beside her, and she kept catching his eye, kept remembering the feel of him pressing her up against the wall, and the taste of him, and when her eyes dropped to his mouth, she forced them up quickly again, and saw that he’d seen.

There wasn’t a reason for her to blush at getting blatantly caught.

She wanted him.

She was almost completely certain he wanted her, too.

The group of them left the canteen all together, separating in the corridor. Jyn continued down towards the bunks with Cassian, and, of course, with K-2. They slowed when they were getting close to Cassian’s.

“Shall we play a game of chess?” K-2 asked.

“I think, um. I think I’m going to call it a night,” Cassian said.

“It is early.”

“I know, but I—I can’t remember the last time that I got a good night’s sleep.”

“You are not tired now.”

“I am.”

“No,” K-2 said. “Your levels of cortisol are low, which indicate that you are undaunted by stress, and, in fact, relative to your usual cortisol levels, I’d say you are—”

“ _Kay_.”

K-2 was quiet. “Fine.” If robots could sigh, Jyn was sure he would have.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Cassian said.

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“Erso,” K-2 said, because he’d taken to calling her by her surname in his imitation at surliness.

She blinked.

“Cassian is going to sleep,” he said. “He does not want your company. I do not want your company either, but I will tolerate you for his sake. That is what friends do.” He was expectant. “Come. I will teach you how to play chess.”

“Oh.”

“It is complicated, but I am patient.”

“I’ll pass.”

“I think Jyn is tired, too,” Cassian said, raising his eyebrows at her.

“Yes,” she said. “ _Yes_. I’m—I’m beat. Exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open right now.”

“I do not believe you,” K-2 said.

“I don’t really need you to believe me.”

He made a noise of irritation. “I see. Well. Fine.” He started to turn to leave, only to pause.

“I just have to talk to Cassian about something,” she added.

“Yes,” Cassian said.

“You are both behaving very erratically,” K-2 decided. “I suspect you _do_ need to sleep. Fine. I expect your behavior to improve by tomorrow.” And with a lot of pretention for a robot, he turned, and headed off down the corridor at last.

They shared a smile at K-2’s expense.

He cleared his throat. “Do you want a nightcap?” He nodded his head at the door of his compartment.

“No,” she said.

There was a flicker of doubt in his gaze.

“Can I come in anyway?”

He smiled.

His compartment was regulation; it was small, and clean, and impersonal. The door slid shut after them. She turned to him, and placed her hands on his chest, biting her lip, and looking up.

He leaned in slowly, holding her gaze until his breath was hot on her lips, and she had to close the distance, had to closer to close her eyes, and tilt her chin, and _kiss_ him. It was soft at first. Soft, and chaste. She curled her fingers in the material of his shirt, though, and opened her mouth, and, suddenly, they were kissing like before. He stole the breath from her lungs, and she was glad to give it to him. She snaked her hands up to grasp at his shoulder, at the back of his head, and she pressed in closer, kissing and kissing him.

She drew away with laughter on her lips.

“What?”

She kissed him.

“What?”

She kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.

His hands wound around her waist, and down, sliding over her ass, and their kisses grew messy, were teeth and spit and eager, breathless laughter. She began to toe off her boots, and he did the same, stumbling just slightly, and making her laugh. She groped the buckle of his trousers, and he helped her to undo it. They stumbled back towards his bed, and she pushed him down, hooking her thumbs in his waistband, and pulling his trousers off along with his underwear, yanking them down his legs, and tossing them. He reached for her, and she kissed him, fumbling to shuck her trousers, too. She got them down her legs, and her underwear, too, and was climbing onto him, was half-falling onto him with her underwear still caught on her ankle, and his laughter in her mouth when she kissed him again.

He pushed his fingers into her hair, and slid a hand up her thigh. “Can—?” He caught her eye.

“21-B gave me a shot that lasts eight months,” she said.

He nodded.

She rose up slightly.

He tilted his head up to kiss her, and she took him in her hand, stroked him, and lined him up at her entrance.

She pressed her forehead to his, and sank onto him, closing her eyes for a moment at the stretch of him, and releasing a slow, shaky breath when he was buried to the hilt in her. “Jyn,” he breathed. She opened her eyes to meet his gaze. She had wanted this for months. Now she had it. She had _him._ She kissed him, hugging his neck, and starting to move, angling her hips, and fucking him, and he caught onto her rhythm easily because that was how it was with them, because they _worked_.

His hands were bruising on her hips.

She leaned in slightly, changing the angle, and taking him deeper, and it got him to hit _that_ spot, making her gasp, and fist her hand in his hair.

He bent his head to press his lips to her neck.

“Cass,” she panted. “ _Cassian_ , I—” She squeezed her eyes shut.

It washed over her.

And with her clenched tightly around him, he rose up, and turned, pressed her back into the bed, and hooked an arm under her thigh, lifting it, and starting to fuck her into the mattress until he was coming, too, burying his face in her neck.

He collapsed on her, and she held his weight to her for a moment, trying to catch her breath. His shirt was sticking to his back with sweat. She ran a hand up, and carded her fingers into his soft, damp hair.

After a beat, he pushed up, and pulled out of her, moving to lie beside her.

It was quiet.

“I meant to get your shirt off, too,” he said.

She laughed. “Sorry.” It was lucky her cheeks were flushed from fucking. “I . . .” She trailed off.

He pushed up on his elbow to look at her. She bit her lip. His hair was sticking up in the back, and sweat was beaded at his temple, and his eyes were certain on her, were dark and warm and affectionate.

“I’m not much good at the other stuff,” she said, sheepish.

“Me, neither.”

They had always been alike.

She shifted to cup his jaw, and kiss him. She brushed her thumb against his stubble, and she could feel the shape of his smile. He reached up, and took her hand in his, rubbing his finger against her glove. She breathed a laugh, and pulled away to sit up properly, to tug off her gloves, and, after a beat, to pull off her shirt, too, and unclasp her bra, sliding the straps off her shoulder, and tossing it. She lay back against the pillows again.

He smiled.

She raised her eyebrows.

He shifted up, too, and took off his shirt, and her gaze raked over him when he leaned over her, and his fingers brushed the chord of her necklace. He kissed her. She curled a hand in his hair, deepening it, and he cupped her breast, rubbing his thumb against her nipple, and making it pebble.

She’d never been much for kissing. She’d always thought it felt a little like being assaulted, like it was a messy, pointless prerequisite. She liked Cassian’s kisses. She liked the slowness of his kisses, the purpose, the way that he drew her lip between his, and drew her sweetly into the kiss. It left her aching for more.

“You mind if I stay the night?” she asked.

“I’d mind if you didn’t,” he said.

She smiled, and pushed her hand through his hair again, because she wanted to, and liked to, because she could.

\---

It wasn’t something they talked about. They didn’t need to talk about it. It didn’t change anything that mattered. They fucked. It didn’t change the fact that they had each other’s backs. It didn’t make her start to listen to the comms for news of him when he was off base, and it didn’t make her stop. It didn’t change the fact that they were in the middle of a war.

If he wasn’t off base, she was.

They were moons that orbited the same great, terrible planet, passing in the night. Still. Once in a while, they passed close enough to touch.

\---

She knew he was awake when she woke, because his hand was resting on her side, and his thumb was brushing lazily against her ribs. She sighed. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but she knew they doubtless had to report for duty very soon.

“You sleep with your mouth open,” he said.

She opened her eyes.

There was an easy, sleep fresh smile on his face, and he reached a hand up to rub his thumb over her lip.

“I know.”

He leaned in.

She pressed her lips together, allowing him a chaste, closed-mouth kiss. He raised his eyebrows, and her smile in answer was closed-mouth, too. It amused him. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, to her jaw, to the soft, untouched skin below her jaw, scratching her neck with his stubble. She carded her fingers in his hair. He rose up, and over her.

She opened her legs for him, expecting him to settle in the cradle of her thighs.

He kissed her, and bent his head, dropping a kiss to her breast, and to her belly, brushing his hands up her thighs, and spreading them.

“What are you doing?” she breathed.

He pressed his mouth to her.

She sucked in a breath, and when his lips found her clit, she arched up, and grasped at the sheets, at his hair. He fucked her with his mouth, curling his tongue, and sucking her clit, making her gasp his name. She arched up completely off the bed when she came.

She was boneless when he crawled up, and kissed her.

She cupped his face in her hands, and pulled him closer, hugging his shoulders, and wrapping her legs around his waist, feeling his smile on her lips

\---

The mission was simple. The imperials had a small weapons depot in a mountain on Waskiro, and a squadron of the Pathfinders was supposed to infiltrate the depot, and take it, claiming the weapons for the Rebellion, and destroying the depot on their way out the door. Jyn could do it in her sleep.

It figured there would be complications.

The city in the valley right beside the depot was _crawling_ with Stormtroopers.

They had to revise the plan.

Dameron was going to find the base of operations with Gabr, and see if something was happening that the Alliance needed to know about. Jyn was going to meet with their contact to see what he knew. Melshi was going to take the rest of the squadron to the depot, and get in position to take it.

“You’ll need backup,” Tully said, insisting on meeting the contact with her.

She was annoyed.

Dameron was in charge, however, and he agreed.

They separated.

She was rooting in her bag for lipstick when the muzzle of a blaster was pressed to the back of her head. She froze. She became hyper aware of everything in that moment, of the distance to people in the street, of the time it would take to get a hand on the knife she’d stowed in her boot, of Tully’s loud, rattling breath.

“I’m sorry, Erso,” he said, stripping her of the blaster on her hip.

She grit her teeth.

“There are wars that can’t be won. Get up. If you try anything, I’ll put you down.”

She rose to her feet as slowly as possible.

“Hands on your head.” He began to pat her down, and she swallowed at the anger that rose in her throat, that threatened to choke her, and distract her from tearing him limb from limb. “I know you’re trying to think of a way to take me. Stop. If you want a chance at surviving this, you do what I say.”

She dug her toes into the dirt.

“Turn,” he ordered.

She turned, and struck, twisting her hips, and grabbing his wrist, swinging her leg to hook at his ankle, and knock him off his feet. He swore, and, for a breath, they were locked in a fight of wills. She ducked under his arm, and pulled her knife from her boot, slashing at his chest when she spun to miss the aim of his blaster.

She was faster than he was.

He was stronger.

He twisted her arm, and shoved her against the wall, stabbing at her wrist with his wrist, and forcing the knife out of her hand. She made to shove her knee between his legs, but he caught her knee between his thighs, and smacked her across the face with his blaster, cutting right beneath her eye with the assault, and making her dizzy with pain for a moment, blinding her. He dug his fingers into her throat, pinning her in place at last, and choking her, making her claw at his hand because she couldn’t fucking _breathe_.

“I could kill you right now,” he threatened.

She glared.

Night was creeping up quickly on them. Still. The shape of his face was visible in the shadows. She’d kill him. He took a small, unfamiliar comm from his pocket, and radioed in, using a code she’d never heard before.

He was a traitor.

“Do you want to know why the troopers are here?” he asked. “The story is going to be that they came to provide much needed relief to the people of Waskiro. You’re the scum that’ll use that mission of relief to attack. History is going to remember the Pathfinders as indiscriminate, militant murderers. You won’t care who you take down with you.” He leaned in. “You’ll slaughter innocent civilians alongside soldiers.”

Her eyes were watering from lack of air.

He released his hold on her throat at last, and she gasped for breath, coughing.

He yanked her from the wall, only to shove her against it again face first, and cuff her hands behind her back. “Come on.” He pulled her by the arm, and shoved her forward.

The moment she couldn’t feel the muzzle of the blaster at the back of her head, she was going to snap his neck.

He led her back to the central trading market.

It was starting to rain.

“Here’s your choice,” he said, pressing her against the side of a building with his chest to her back, and pinning her, breathing hotly against her cheek. “You go in, and you plant this bomb, and you have seventeen minutes exactly to get as far as you can. If you escape the planet, you escape the planet. You’ll be dead to us, to the Rebellion. To the _galaxy_ , and you can do whatever you want, go wherever you want. If you refuse, this street still blows, and you go with it. What is it going to be, Erso?”

“I’m going to kill you,” she told him.

He scoffed.

She wanted to snarl a dozen different questions at him, but she knew he wouldn’t bother answering them.

He thrust her into the dark, crowded street in front of him, and she felt the blaster at the small of her back. She waited. He lead her into the thick of the street, and a stranger brushed against her, and, in a blink, she spun, and elbowed at Tully’s face, twisted her foot around his leg, and tripped him, trying to run.

He fired his blaster after her, sending the crowd into a frenzy of shouting, and shoving.

She fell.

He’d shot her in the leg.

She struggled to get to her feet, but he was there, was above her, and he tore off her necklace, and she saw the back of his hand.

\---

The world was a blur of people moving above her. She blinked. It was raining. How long had she been lying there? Her leg was burning with pain. She remembered. Her heart seized with sudden panic. Tully had wanted her to plant a bomb. Had he planted it? Where was he? How much time did she have?

Her hands were trapped under her, were cuffed.

She had to dislocate her shoulder to get the leverage to sit up.

It was a struggle to get all the way to her feet, but she was able to, and she pushed her way through the crowd, dragging her stiff, burning leg, and gritting her teeth at the pain. The cuffs that he’d put on her were standard Imperial issue, which meant she could break them against a flat, hard surface if she angled it right. She used the brick of a building, slamming the cuff against the corner, and it took a couple of minutes, but, finally, she heard the pop, and she was able to tug them off.

She popped her shoulder in again.

She needed to get to her pack. Tully wouldn’t have bothered to return for it, which meant it was lying in that alley. Her commlink was tucked in the top of the pack.

She didn’t get very far.

She heard an explosion in the distance, and watched it billow up against the black of the sky. It was in the direction of the depot. Her mind was racing to guess what might be happening. Before she could figure anything out, there was another distant explosion. She _needed_ to get to her commlink.

She was staggering her way down the street where Tully had offered her a choice when there was another sudden explosion, and she turned her head.

\---

She woke with a start at a woman’s shrill, agonized scream. Above her, the rafters of the warehouse were littered with sunlight, and drifting, dancing motes of dust were visible. Her body was stiff with soreness. She sat up. She was on a thin mattress pad, was in a line of bloody, battered bodies that were stretched out on pads on the floor.

It was a kind of makeshift field hospital in an empty, abandoned factory.

 _The bomb_ , she thought.

Tully had planted a bomb in the market.

Her leg was in a split of sorts. She was sore. Under her grimy, shredded shirt, she felt the scratch of bandages. Her head was bandaged, too, and bandages were spread over her face. She pressed her fingers to her thickly bandaged cheek in assessment, and winced.

But if that was the extent of her injuries, she’d consider herself fortunate.

She clenched her jaw, and got to her feet.

She could see people bustling about, but nobody was paying any attention to Jyn. Good. She needed to figure out what was going on before she might be forced to reveal her hand.

How much time had passed?

“Ma’am!” said a woman, noticing her, and reaching a hand to Jyn as though to she meant to steady her. “Careful. You have survived this much.” She gave a tense, tired smile. “It’d be a shame to hurt yourself now.”

“I’m fine,” Jyn said.

“If you can stand, I’ll admit you’re doing better than most.” She wore an apron that was smeared in dried brown blood. “How are you feeling? Dizziness? Can you walk on that leg?” Her gaze swept over Jyn in quick, practiced assessment, and the lines in her face grew more pronounced with concern.

“How long has it been since the bombing?” Jyn asked.

“It’s been a couple of days.”

“ _Days_?”

“You’ve woken a handful of times, but the pain took you away again. I wish there was more we could’ve done for you. For everyone. We don’t have much in the way of supplies. Those filthy fucking rebels saw to that.”

“What?”

“It was a band of Rebels that did this,” said the woman. “They were attacking the depot, and decided it wouldn’t do just to bomb it. They had to bomb us, too. People who’ve never done anything but made a living for ourselves in the hills.” She shook her head. “You aren’t from here, though. I know as much as that. You’re a trader? I’m afraid you’ll have a time of it if you want to leave the planet any time soon. You might as well just take a seat, and let me look at your bandages. If there isn’t any infection, I’ll let you go. We could use your cot.”

“I’m fine,” Jyn said.

“You know you got burned, don’t you? It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. But half the skin on your face was seared.”

“I’ll live.”

“Yes. I can see you’re the sort who does. Fine.”

“Do you—can you tell me what’s happened to the Rebels? The ones who did this? Did they get away, or—?”

“No,” said the woman, and there was a grim, sour satisfaction in her voice.

“No?”

“Some of them were killed in the bombs they themselves set off. Suicide in the name of their bloody, useless _cause_. The troopers got the rest of them. People are saying they’ll be executed by the end of the week. Don’t know if it’ll be here, or they’ll be taken. Honestly, I don’t much care.”

“Right.”

“You really ought to allow me to—”

There was moan from a few pads away from them.

She frowned.

“Go,” Jyn said. “I told you. I’ll live.”

She waited until the woman had turned away completely to test what state she was really, actually in. Her leg seized with pain, but she was able to move it despite the pain. She fisted her hands, and walked. At the back of the warehouse, there were bloody tables and bloody blankets and bloody knives. She did a sweep of the room with her gaze, and stole a couple of knives, making a beeline for the door, and escaping.

She swayed on her feet from a moment when she saw the devastation in the street.

What was next?

Bodhi had landed the ship in a small, narrow valley of trees at the bottom of a mountain that hid them from easy view. _No._ Even if troopers hadn’t swept every corner of the city, surrounding mountains, and valleys in between, they would have found the ship because Tully would have given up the location.

She wasn’t even thinking clearly now.

 _Think_ , Saw taught her.

She didn’t just need a way off this planet. She needed to find her friends. She couldn’t leave without them.

If there was a chance there were still here, she had to get to them.

She needed real, usable intelligence.

She startled slowly across the street, keeping a tally of the troopers that she saw, and of civilians, trying to recall everything from her briefing on this planet, searching the street for weapons, for ideas, for opportunities.

It startled her when she saw her _face_ in the street.

There was a projector up ahead in the middle of the ruins, splashing a holo on the outside of a burnt building shell. _Corporal Jyn Erso._ She stared. _Rebel Alliance Special Op Forces._ Why the hell was her picture being projected for a city of dust to see? _Killed in bombing._ She touched a hand to the bandages that crisscrossed her face, and were creeping up slightly to obscure a line at the bottom of her vision.

She watched her image dissolve slowly.

Melshi’s face appeared. _Killed in bombing_. She swallowed at the sight of his thin, unsmiling expression.

It showed their faces one by one. Sutton. Gabr. Dameron. She didn’t know what the point was, showing their pictures, and declaring the fact of their deaths, or of their captures. Tully had told her that they’d be blamed for the slaughter of civilians. Did the Empire mean to make Waskiro hurt worse by flashing the holopics of the terrorists? Yes. They wanted to make absolutely sure everyone knew the blame lay with the Rebellion.

She choked on her breath when she saw Bodhi’s face. _Captured_ , it read. The relief that swelled in her was overwhelming for a moment.

It turned to resolve.

She saw a Stormtrooper on patrol turn down an alley. She followed him. As soon as she was certain that they were alone in the alley, she cried out. “Sir!” She stumbled. “Sir, I saw one of them! One of the Rebels! I saw her!” She was wide-eyed, gesturing and crying and panicking.

It worked.

She plunged one of the knives up under his helmet. He staggered. She tore his blaster from his grasp, and knocked him over the head with the butt of the weapon.

She stumbled back against the wall with the blaster in her hand.

She was dizzy.

The struggle had pulled at her bandages, too, and it made her teary eyed with stinging pain.

She took his blaster off him, and his radio, and fled the alley. She made it to a small, grassy hillside before she sank to her knees, and began to tune the radio. It was time to find out where her friends were, and how to get to them.

She did.

It was clear she’d have to do this in the fashion of Saw’s people, though.

Fine.

She started with gathering the supplies she’d need. It was easier than she could have hoped, because, she discovered, the ruins of a bombed, broken city were good for scavenging. Nobody was going to waste his gaze on some crippled, bandaged woman, creeping in the alleys, and picking at the ruins. She got the wire that she needed, and rigging, and a flashlight, too, and she managed to get a couple more blasters, and a pack to hide the weapons in. She wasn’t stupid enough to let herself get caught with blasters on her hip.

Her burns were stringing with the prickle of sweat, and she had to drag her leg behind her, and her ribs were hurting so badly that she thought one might be broken.

She’d dealt with worse.

It was hike to the eastern lookout tower, but, honestly, it took her longer to rewire the lock control panel, and get _in_ the tower. Night had swept in. She had to hold a flashlight in her mouth to light the panel.

She took out the guard at the top the tower, and rigged the blasters with wire.

She hooked the wire to the chrono in the tower.

She blasted the lock control panel on her way out just to make it harder for them. She made it around the hillside, and past the valley of small cargo shuttles, and found a good vantage point to view the Imperial holding building, squatting, and aiming her blaster. She breathed in, and out, and squared her shoulders.

Once it startled, it would happen swiftly.

Half a dozen armed, pacing troopers were stationed in front of the building.

It went off.

From the eastern lookout tower, there was the loud, pinging clatter of blasters wildly firing.

The Stormtroopers reacted immediately. They began to shout, and to gesture, and to run in the direction of the tower. One was left. She took him with a shot to the chest. She was up, was running, and stumbling, and reaching the front of the building in time for a trooper to emerge in alarm, and she took him, too, and staggered in the door he’d opened for her.

She blinked to clear her dizzy, swimming vision.

The corridor of dingy holding cells was narrow; the building in general was small, was built for local, petty criminal. She was glad. It meant there was only one more trooper for her to kill.

He put up a fight.

Still. She got him, and grabbed at the bars of a cell to keep on her feet.

“ _Jyn_?”

“Sergeant,” she said, breathless.

“I thought—”

She shook her head. “No.” She stumbled back slightly to blast off the keypad on his cell.

The door swung open. Dameron was already on his feet, and he surged out of the cell, grasping her by the elbow. His face was battered, but his eyes were shining, and he was alive.

“There are shuttles,” she told him. “But we don’t have a lot of time. My distraction—"

“If you’ve come this far, we can go the rest of the way,” he said, squeezing her arm in reassurance.

They got Rhee out of cell, and Sutton, and Bodhi was in the very far back.

He gasped her name at the sight of her. “ _Jyn_.” She nearly toppled over when he surged to her, when he hugged her. “I thought you were dead,” he murmured. “I thought—” He was crying.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching him.

In the end, Bodhi had to half-drag, half-carry her to the Imperial cargo shuttle.

She waited to hear that there was a shield on the planet, or a fighter after them, or anything that would stop them. She didn’t. She couldn’t really breathe, though, until Dameron let out a rough, barking laugh, because Bodhi had made the jump to hyperspace, and they were on their way to base.

\---

Bodhi emerged from the cockpit. It took him a moment to spot where she was slumped on the ground with her back to the side of the ship. He headed for her, and knelt. “Sutton’s got her eye on things,” he explained. His gaze was everywhere at once, looking at her leg and her face and even her bruised, cut up hands. “We’ll get you in a tank as soon as we’re back at base,” he said. He hesitated, and, after a beat, he took her hand.

She nodded.

“Oh! I, um. I’ve got something for you. I—” He reached into his pocket.

She breathed in sharply at the sight of her necklace.

“He was taunting me with it,” he said. “Tully.” His face darkened just slightly. “Here.” She leaned forward enough for him to put it around her neck, and she didn’t even mind that he fumbled to get it knotted. “Good.” He smiled. “You don’t look like you with it.”

She clasped the crystal in her hand.

Unbidden, her mind conjured up Melshi’s pale face. _You want to get out of here_? She locked her jaw to keep the grief from showing.

Nobody really spoke after that. There wasn’t much to say. The relief of escaping was fading away quickly. The replacement was a cold, empty feeling of grief, and of anger, of hate. They hadn’t simply failed to accomplish their mission. They’d been betrayed. They’d lost people. They’d witnessed a city be bombed to dust.

Saw used to say that traitors were the worst, vilest kind of scum.

She thought of Tully, and all the things she would do to him if she ever saw him again, all the ways she would make him hurt.

\---

They were able to get in touch with the Alliance, and fly safely into base. “Can you stand?” Bodhi asked. She nodded. But when she tried, she found she couldn’t. The effort only made her dizzy. Bodhi had to pull her up, and he kept his arm around her waist, keeping her on her feet. Slowly, they shuffled down the ramp, and off the shuttle into the dull, dry heat of the hanger.

“I can carry her,” Rhee said, frowning.

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t, but she curled her finger into Bodhi’s torn jacket, and pretended she wasn’t putting most of her weight on him.

“Jyn," K-2 said. "You were dead."

Jyn’s gaze flew up from the ground, and there was K-2, and there was Cassian. “Sorry,” she said. “No.”

Cassian’s face was slack with disbelief.

She met his gaze.

He started suddenly towards them, was half-running, and was there, was pulling her into his arms. She breathed in sharply. He hugged her. She closed her eyes, and pressed in closer to him, sank into him, and let him take her weight. She’d survived. He turned his head, and she felt the press of his nose, felt his breath on her neck.

Her eyes pricked with tears.

“I found out,” Cassian murmured. “I _knew_ Tully was a traitor, and I sent the intelligence on the comms, but it was too late. It was too late.”

She understood.

 _If only, if only, if only_.

In the medbay, they wanted to put her in bacta.

She hated being dunked in the stuff, hating getting stripped, and hooked up, and dropped in a tank. She’d had to do when she was a girl with Saw, and she’d had nightmares about it for weeks. She tried to argue with the droid that it was a waste of resources, that rest, a couple of patches, and the like was enough.

Her opinion was ignored, of course.

“The rudimentary medicinal treatment you received on Waskiro was a very temporary balm, Corporal,” said the droid. “They used sap that is useful in congelation of blood, and very little else. You require full emersion to recover your health.”

“I’ll stay,” Cassian said.

“What?”

“I’ll stay in the medbay as long as you’re in the tank.”

“Sir,” said the droid.

She nodded. “Okay.” The last thing she remembered before the droid put her under Cassian’s hand clasping her hand suddenly, and the warmth of his gaze.

\---

The bacta left her with soft, unblemished skin. Her hair was softer, too. She brushed her thumb over the spot on her belly where there was supposed to be a rough, puckered scar, and felt like her skin wasn’t her own. She wasn’t a person who had soft, unblemished skin. She rolled onto her side, and looked at Cassian.

She cupped his jaw, and her finger slid over the small, raised scar that she knew was just under his ear.

He opened his eyes.

“I used to plant explosives for Saw’s people,” she told him.

He was quiet.

“I was easy to overlook. I’d play the beggar. Saw used to say the armor I wore was that of a scared, helpless little girl. He told me once that he knew the moment he pulled me from the bunker that I wasn’t a scared, helpless little girl. He said it was in the eyes. He said there was fire in mine.”

“He was right,” Cassian said.

“He would have liked you,” she said. “He thought men without a cause weren’t men.” She raised her eyes to his face. Even in the dark, his gaze was steady. She told him the story of the scar on her belly. She told him that she used to sneak into Saw’s quarters when she was little, and they would sleep back to back, and he never, ever said anything to her about. She told him that Saw was her family.

\---

She stilled at the sound of someone in the small training center. Who was training in the middle of the night? There was a grunt of exertion. She crept forward just enough to glance in, and blinked in surprise at the sight of Bodhi. He was pounding a small punching sack.

“You’re going to break your hand,” she said.

He startled.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“I—”

“Hold your hand out flat,” she instructed. “Now curl in at your knuckles. Right. Curl in the rest of the way. Good, and your thumb is laying . . .” She shaped his hand. She checked the strength of his fist with her thumb. “Good. Now. Put your chin down slightly.” She showed him. “Right, and put your legs a little further apart, and bend your knees. Okay. You’ll twist your hips like that _while_ you extend your arm.” She demonstrated. “Okay.” She nodded. “Try it.”

This punch was much, _much_ better than what she’d witnessed from the door.

“Better,” she said.

“Pilot training didn’t really include a lesson in hand-to-hand,” he said, sheepish.

She assessed him. “You want to learn to fight,” she said.

“Kind of.”

“If we’re going to do this, you have to want it.”

“I want it.” He swallowed. “I want to be able to hold my own. I’m never going to be like Chirrut, or Baze. Or you. But. I’m not even that good a pilot. I figured the least I could do was be a not that good fighter, too.”

“Let’s start on basic self-defense,” she decided. “Once you master how to get _out_ of trouble, then we can teach you how to _make_ some trouble.” She smiled.

\---

She broke the kiss, standing for a moment pressed against him with his hands in her hair, and his breath washing hotly over her face. “Come on.” She surged up, pressing a messy, opened-mouth kiss to his lips, and grabbed his hand, starting out of the alcove, and down the narrow, icy corridor with him at her back.

She walked as fast as she could without breaking into a run.

Her lips were raw from the scratch of his stubble, and her heart was threatening to beat right out of her chest, and her stomach was jumping with anticipation.

It was a struggle to punch in the code at his door.

He pressed up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and tilting his head to kiss her neck, making her gasp a laugh.

The door opened with a whoosh of air.

They tumbled in, and she turned, pulling at the sleeves of his coat, and dragging his face down close, kissing him without any finesse. His hands snuck between them to undo the fastenings of her jacket, and she help him, shrugging it off, and reaching to help him with his jacket, to push the stupid, beloved parka off. Hoth was cold, but she couldn’t have cared less about the cold right now. She tugged the tie out of her hair, and gave him a quick, breathless kiss, pulled off her scarf, and peeled off her shirt, and her undershirt, and her bra. She toed off her boots, and ended up kicking one half way across his small, dimly lit compartment. She pushed her trousers down easily, and took her underwear with them, and surged up, grabbing his shoulders, and kissing him again, and again, backing him towards the bed. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly two months.

“I missed you,” he panted.

She shoved him onto the bed, and straddled him.

He grazed a hand up her stomach, and squeezed her breast. It startled her when he flipped them suddenly, and pinned her to the bed, bending his head to her breasts, and she gasped at the scrape of his stubble, at the heat of his mouth, and his tongue on her nipple. His hands were still playing with her breasts when he pressed a kiss to his belly, and lower, when he licked a stripe to her slit, and made her cry out. She was about to fall off the bed in the position they were in, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. She was so ready, so desperate, and he took over the edge so quickly _,_ sucking on her clit, and curling two of his fingers in her. He rose up, and kissed her, and she grabbed at his side, at his ass.

“I want—”

“I know, mi amor,” he breathed. “I know what you want.” He thrust into her.

She grasped at his shoulders.

He set a pace that was unrelenting, driving into her again, and again.

“Cassian,” she gasped. “Cassian, I—” She dug her fingers into his back. “ _Cassian_. Cass—”

His gaze burned her face, and she reached a hand up, cupping his cheek, and sliding to cup the back of his neck, and bring him closer, kissing him. Her mouth parted against his when she began to come, and she ached up into him, feeling his thrusts grow erratic while the waves of relief washed over her. She clenched purposefully around him, and he dropped his forehead to her cheek, to her neck, groaning her name, and swearing, pounding into her.

She hugged his shoulders, and swiped a kiss to his ear.

He came, shoving her up the bed slightly with the force of his last hard, fast thrust.

“I think that’s the first time we’ve done it on the _side_ of the bed,” she said, trying to catch her breath.

He huffed a laugh into her neck.

She pulled up her legs, and rolled them over to lie properly on the bed, leaving her sprawled on his chest, and keeping him buried to the hilt inside her.

He rubbed a hand over her damp naked back.

“I’m hungry."

His chest shook with a laugh. “Hungry?” He combed his fingers in her hair.

She turned her head to rest her chin on his chest, and look at him. “You stole me from the canteen,” she said. “I only just got back from Radnor. I haven’t had anything actually substantial to eat in a week.” She gave him a pointed, accusatory look.

He smiled. “In that case,” he said, “I think I’ll have something that’ll earn your forgiveness.”

She grumbled at having to get up, but she flopped on her back, and watched him get up, and sit on the edge of the bed, pulling his pack to him, and rummaging in it.

She traced her eyes over his back. There was a fresh pink scar that slashed from his shoulder to his spine. She frowned. He must have gotten it sometime in the months he’d been away from her. Bacta had helped to heal it quickly, but a patch of bacta couldn’t keep a gash as large as that from marking him.

“Here.” He turned.

She rose up on her elbow, curious, and he handed her several small triangles wrapped neatly in foil. “What is this?” She sat up the rest of the way, and tore at the foil on one of the triangles.

“Chocolate,” he said, sounding so pleased with himself.

“I haven’t had chocolate in years.” She bit into the triangle. “That’s good.” She popped the rest in her mouth, and began to unwrap another piece. “That’s _really_ good."

“Substantial?”

She hummed. “I’m not supposed to share these with you, am I?”

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“No.”

He laughed, and dropped kiss to her shoulder before getting up, and going to the refresher.

She was finished with the chocolates by the time he returned, and climbed back on the bed, pulling at the sheets. She shifted to get under the layers with him. The chill was beginning to creep in again.

“I don’t know why we had to set up the base on a planet of _ice_ ,” Cassian said.

“It isn’t as bad as I’d imagined.”

“I’m wearing three different pairs of socks right now.”

She snorted. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him _without_ socks on. Even before the Alliance had moved all of the scattered, provisional operations to Hoth, Cassian had proven to have _zero_ tolerance for the cold. It was endearing, really. She threw a leg over his waist, and bent her head, kissing his chest.

His fingers grazed lightly up her back.

“I’ll keep you warm,” she said.

He grinned.

She flattered her chest to his, and kissed him, and it wasn’t long before she felt him growing hard against her ass.

They took it slower this time, because he always liked taking it slow after she’d scratched that first, desperate itch, and, honestly, she liked it slow, too.

She had yet to find a way she _didn’t_ like with him.

After, they pulled on clothes. The compartments were warmer than the rest of the base, but they were never quite warm enough, and a single flat sheet with a single flat blanket on top was hardly a solution. The lights went off automatically at midnight to conserve the power.

He drifted off.

His chest rose under her cheek, and fell. Rose, and fell. _I missed you, too_ , she thought.

She was careful not to wake him when she slipped out of the bed, and knelt on the ground, searching in his pack for more of the chocolate.

He couldn’t have expected any different.

She was a criminal.

She couldn’t find anything. Her fingers did close around a small, palm-sized square that she thought for a moment was chocolate. It wasn’t. It was a holopic, and when she projected it, she was looking at her own, half-smiling face. Her lip was split, and her hair was falling into her eyes.

“The lining,” he murmured.

She snapped the holopic off quickly, feeling a surge of guilt, and glanced at the shape of him in the bed. She frowned. The lining? She reached in the pack, and felt the lining, finding a small, hidden pocket. Inside, there were a handful of small, wrapped triangles. She grinned, and peeled at the foil of one, popping the chocolate into her mouth.

She returned to the bed, lifting the sheets, and settling in against his back, pressing a kiss to his shoulder

\---

She heard him moving in the dark of the room. But. She was warm, and sleepy, and content, and she couldn’t be bothered to wake up. She felt the bed shift with his weight, and he leaned in, wrapping an arm around her waist, and pressing his face to her cheek for a moment. “I have to go,” he murmured. She hummed at him in acknowledgement. His hand stroked her hair

It was another hour before she woke up properly, and found herself alone.

She sighed.

She didn’t know where Cassian’s mission had taken him, but, then, that was never something she was privy to. He always knew about her missions, of course. She washed her face in the refresher, and put on her boots, and when she saw he’d left his old, beloved parka, she put it on, too.

\---

The mission was to raid a fuel inspection, storage, and transfer facility on Galidraan. The scale of the mission was larger than usual, and the possibility of complications was greater, and all of Pathfinders were going to participate. Still, Jyn was startled to learn at the briefing that Solo was going to lead the operation.

“ _Why_?” she asked, interrupting Dameron’s introduction of the general.

There was pause.

“Why?” Solo said, incredulous. “Because this is what I _do_.”

“Captain Solo is familiar with Galidraan,” Dameron said. “He’s had dealings on it before. We don’t have any contacts on the ground. We’re relying on second-hand, dated intel. He’ll be able to lead us safely, efficiently, and effectively the moment we touch the ground.”

“He’s our map,” Jyn said.

“I’m your _map_?” Solo repeated. “Listen, sister. I don’t know who think you are, but—"

Beside him, Chewbacca said something.

Solo turned slowly to look at him. “Did I ask you?” He raised his eyebrows.

“What do we know about their defenses?” Bodhi asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” Dameron said, and before anyone could get another word in, he launched into the details of their cover as traders.

That afternoon, they left Hoth on a stolen Aqualish transport. Solo piloted the ship, of course. Bodhi was left to sit with Jyn. Rhee had packed ration cubes, and they ate a few. Jyn had eaten enough truly terrible food for the sake of survival that she was more than fine with bland, tasteless food. Once they’d made the jump to hyperspace, Solo came out from the cockpit. It would be another hour before they were orbiting the planet.

“It’s Jyn, isn’t it?”

She eyed him.

“Friendly,” he said, taking a seat. “I’m Han. This is Chewie.”

“Charmed,” she said.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve heard about you, you know,” he said.

She understood the implication.

People weren’t good at keeping the things they said behind her back to themselves. She was the daughter of a traitor. She thought she was above taking orders. She was reckless. She was a criminal. She was a bitch. If anyone who actually mattered thought that, it might actually bother her.

“You’re in it for the money, right?” she said.

He grinned.

She found herself smiling, too.

“You know, I think I’m going to like you.” He tilted his head. “Yeah. We’re going to get along. You’re my kind of girl.”

“Sorry,” she said, breezy. “I like my men with conviction.”

“I like you, too, Erso,” Dameron said.

“I’ve got _conviction_ ,” Solo said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“There’s a reason nobody likes you,” he said, sour.

“I like her,” Bodhi said.

She smiled, and wrapped an arm around Bodhi’s shoulders, pulling him into her side, and swiping a kiss to his temple just because.

Dameron spent the rest of the flight grilling Solo for more details about the city that bordered the facility.

Galidraan was a snowy, mountainous planet in the Outer Rim Territory, and, mostly, it was a tucked away, easily forgotten planet. It was a footnote in history. That was to their advantage, of course. It was easier than Jyn would have thought to sneak the transport under the radar of the standard, token Imperial defenses. Obviously, the Empire wasn’t concerned that the Rebels were going to try to take the planet. “It’s because they don’t know that we know there’s anything worth taking,” Dameron said. If that was the case, the Empire was in for a shock.

They landed.

It turned out Solo was _unconventional_ in his methods.

She should have guessed that.

It was more the kind of operation she’d grown up with. Do what you need to do, and fuck how you’re _told_ to do it. Dameron said that Solo got away with it because of the princess.

Personally, she thought he got away with it because it _worked._

They took control of the facility, disarming the troopers, and loading up over sixty dozen canisters of fuel on the transport. They rigged the place to blow. They left, and on their way up through the atmosphere, Jyn saw the mushroom of the explosion.

\---

She was on her way to an intelligence brief meeting when she saw him in conversation with Luke. She smiled without meaning to. She hadn’t seen him in almost a month.

“Jyn!”

“Luke,” she said.

“I heard about Radnor.” His eyes were bright. “Did you really get yourself taken hostage, rig an explosion, and escape by scaling the outside of the garrison?”

“Um.” She blinked. “Yes. Essentially. Yes.”

He grinned.

She never knew quite what to do with Luke, with his openness, and his eagerness.

“I should get going,” he said, glancing at Cassian, and starting to walk backwards away from them. “But, Jyn, if you see Bodhi, tell him Han got the parts to repair that X-wing, and I’ll wait to make the repairs until he’s free. I promised I’d show him how it’s done.”

“I will,” Jyn said.

He smiled.

She watched him disappear cheerfully around the corner, and looked at Cassian. “Did you get in this morning?”

He nodded. “I have to debrief with Draven.” He paused.

“What?”

“That’s my parka,” he said.

She tilted her head, and stepped in closer, reaching up to rest her hands on his chest. He raised his eyebrows. She leaned up, only to pause with her lips a breath from his. “Prove it.” She smacked a kiss to his mouth, and dropped to her heels, giving him a pat on the chest before turning away.

“My debrief won’t take long,” he called.

“I’ve got to meet my sergeant in command for a briefing,” she replied. But, of course, she’d learned a while ago that if she fidgeted obviously enough in a briefing, Dameron gave her the files to review on her own, and released her. She picked up her pace.

\---

She heard when Cassian came in the refresher to use the toilet. She was nearly finished anyway. She turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower, reaching for the small, threadbare towel that came supplied with refreshers. It was damp from his shower that evening. She was used to that. Usually, he cleaned up before bed, and she didn’t bother until the middle of the night when sleep wouldn’t come.

He leaned on the sink, and crossed his arms.

She raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t often see you like this,” he said, and his smile was tender, was soft in his face, and warm in his eyes.

“Naked?”

He chuckled.

She finished drying herself off, hung the towel, and picked up one of his clean white tunics. Most of her life, she’d just slept in the clothes she’d worn that day, and would wear the next. There was something nice about putting on clothes to sleep in, though.

He reached out, and combed his fingers into her limp wet hair.

She needed to cut it.

He cupped her cheek, and his thumb ran gently over her eyelashes. It seemed strangely intimate. She turned her head just enough to press a kiss to his palm.

\---

She was leaving the hanger with Bodhi when Cassian came striding in with K-2 at his heels. She brightened. She was exhausted from the mission to Gromas 16, and more than ready to curl up in her tiny, shared compartment, and sleep for a week. Now she got to curl up with him _._ He spotted them.

“Did you just get in?” Bodhi asked.

“Did _I_?”

He nodded at Cassian’s gear.

“Oh,” Cassian said. “No. I’m—I’m actually just about to go. We’re scheduled to leave before dark.”

“We _were_ scheduled to leave this morning,” K-2 said.

There was a pause.

“Well, um. It was good to see you,” Bodhi said. “I need to—” He jerked his head. “Debrief, and. But we’ll catch up when you get back?”

“Definitely,” Cassian said, and he patted a hand to Bodhi’s shoulder.

Bodhi continued across the hanger.

“You’re leaving _now_?” Jyn asked, searching his face in hope of a sign that he didn’t really need to leave that _minute_.

“Yes,” K-2 said.

“I saw your flightplan,” Cassian said, “and knew you’d be in today, so . . .”

She nodded.

He ‘d been waiting for her.

It was quiet.

“Is this going to go on for much longer?” K-2 asked.

She huffed. “Come on.” She took Cassian’s hand, and led him out of the hanger. K-2 made to follow. “Not you,” she said. He said something in reply, but she couldn’t have cared less what. He could go harass a pilot, or something.

In the corridor, she tugged him to the side, and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down, and kissing him.

He grasped her face.

She pressed in closer to him, and he turned, pinning her against the wall, and trailing his lips down her neck. She gasped, and curled her fingers in the material of his jacket. She turned her face, pressing her lips to his cheek, and pushed her hand up into his hair, pulling his face up again.

He kissed her.

Finally, they took a breath, and she pressed her forehead to his, closing her eyes.

“Can you tell me where you’re going?” she asked.

“Undercover.”

She nodded. “Right.”

“Iseno,” he said, and he reached up to brush her bangs out of her face.

She kissed him.

“Do I need to tell the general that we have to reschedule to tomorrow?” K-2 asked, brusque.

Cassian’s grip tightened on Jyn for a moment before he let go. “No,” he said, turning to K-2. “If we leave now, we can still get out before it’s dark.”

“Finally.”

They left. She watched them go, watched them disappear into the hanger.

She needed to sleep.

Or a drink.

She really, really needed a drink.

Three days later, they were tasked to go to Sullust, and sabotage the factories that lined the dusty, volcanic landscape. She was glad. She couldn’t handle just sitting around with nothing to occupy her.

\---

Solo dragged her with him to investigate the sighting of an Imperial probe droid. It was a day in the snow, ice, wind, and nothingness of Hoth to find what was actually a large debris chunk. She didn’t get feeling back in her toes for hours.

“Did you have something better to do?” he asked.

“Nope.”

From a little ways down, Chewie began arguing loudly with Bodhi about the starfighter they were rewiring.

She’d taken to spending free afternoons with Solo, Chewie, and Bodhi in the hangar. They did repairs, and checked the logs of ships, or, well, she checked the logs of ships, because she liked knowing who was where, and when. It was a way to pass the time when they were grounded.

Sometimes, they sat, and drank.

Solo had hooch.

She took a sip from his flask, and handed it back.

“Heard from your boyfriend?” he asked, conversational.

“What?”

“Guy with the stick up his butt?” He raised his eyebrow. “Andor?”

“He isn’t my boyfriend.”

“I see how you are with him,” Solo said.

“How is that?”

“You know.” He nodded. “You stand close to him.”

“I _stand close to him_? Really?” Her lips twisted with amusement. “That’s your evidence? Can I assume that your keen observational skills aren’t what’s earned you a place in the Rebellion?”

“You,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You’re a women who respects personal space. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“So?”

“There isn’t personal space involved when you’re with Andor. I know. I have eyes.”

She bit her lip.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, smug.

“It’s called having balls.”

“What?"

“He doesn’t have a stick up his butt. It’s called having balls. I guess you wouldn’t know.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t know?”

She smiled. “The princess has balls. Do you think _that’s_ why she doesn’t like you?”

“She likes me.”

She made a vague humming noise of skepticism.

“She _does_ ,” he insisted, and he began to list the ways he knew that the princess was madly in love with him, ticking off his fingers.

She tuned out.

He’d been gone nearly four months.

Since she’d met him, they’d never gone that long without at least one night in common at the base.

She went on the comms that night to listen for word on him. If something were to happen to him, she would have no idea whatever. She listened until her head was buzzing with codes, and confirmations, and the low, tinny buzzing of static.

Thankfully, they had to leave for Gorse first thing in the morning.

But when they got back, it was to learn that Cassian wasn’t back, and hadn’t been back while they were gone.

She found Chirrut in the middle of a session of sparring with Luke. It made her smile a little to watch the two of them, made her think of Saw. He’d been patient with her when he’d taught her to spar like this, but he hadn’t exactly taken it easy on her. Chirrut was the same with Luke. He was unrelenting. But when Luke managed even the smallest of victories, Chirrut’s smile shone. To his credit, Luke seemed able to take the abuse.

“I think we are done for today,” Chirrut said, straightening.

Luke was panting.

“Tomorrow?” Chirrut said.

“Tomorrow,” Luke said, rolling his shoulders with a wince, and he gave Jyn a tired smile when he passed her.

“It is Jyn, isn’t it?” Chirrut said.

“It’s Jyn,” Baze said.

“Seems like Luke is improving,” Jyn said.

“The Force is strong with him.”

She nodded.

He tilted his head.

“I was hoping you could help me with something,” she said, hesitant.

“You’re worried about Cassian.”

“Do you know where he is? Or . . .” _How he is_? She felt stupid for coming to him with this.

“I don’t,” Chirrut said. “But I know he isn’t lost to us. I would know if he were, and I would tell you.”

She nodded. “Thanks.” She’d take what she could get.

She couldn’t fall asleep that night.

One of the women in her small, shared compartment had the misfortune of snoring like the sputtering of an engine that wouldn’t start.

Her compartment on Hoth was unbelievably small. It had a fresher the size of an icebox, and six narrow cots crammed in a space that was big enough for three. She shared the compartment with a handful of women. They were never all there at the same exact time, but Jyn had yet to enjoy the luxury of having the compartment to herself.

She had access to Cassian’s larger, empty compartment.

It felt wrong to use it when he wasn’t using it with her, though.

She put her pillow over her face in an effort to smother the sound of the snoring. It failed. She gave up, and sat up, pulling on her boots, and lacing them with stiff, cold fingers, leaving the compartment.

\---

“I need a ladder,” she told him. “I’ve got to get to the panel up top.” She glared at the mess in the panel in front of her. It was a mess, but there wasn’t an actual, detectable issue. “I think the problem is with the wiring up there.” She turned, and yelled, because Solo had wrapped his arms around her thighs, and hoisted her up. “ _Seriously_?” she said, making a face at the top of his head.

His chin brushed her stomach when he tilted his head up to look at her. “Go on,” he said.

She sighed.

She was able to reach the panel, though. The wiring up here was an impossibly more tangled, sparking jumble. She didn’t know where to _begin_.

“How long does it take to reroute a wire?” he grunted.

“It’s not my fault your ship is a piece of shit,” she said, pulling at a knot of wires.

“You’re a piece of shit.”

She kneed him in the stomach. He swore, and stumbled. “Can you at least be _still_?” she said, testy.

\---

She dropped her tray on the table, and took a seat by Bodhi. Luke was in the middle of some long, terrible joke. Jyn prodded at her dehydrated pork ration. “Wait,” Luke said. “I think I skipped a part.” He launched into the joke from the start. She took a bite of pork. It tasted like pants.

“I’m surprised you’re hanging out with us,” Bodhi said.

“I hang out with you.”

“I know. I mean, with us _now_. I didn’t think I’d see you for the rest of the night.”

She blinked.

“Don’t you usually hole up with Cassian as soon as he’s back?”

“Cassian is back?”

“He got back, like, hours ago.”

She shoved her chair away from the table.

She had to stop herself from running out of the canteen, and in the corridors. Why hadn’t he found her? Even if he’d had to debrief, he would have finished by now. _Hours_ , Bodhi said. She decided to try his compartment to start, and punched in the code with her heart in her throat.

He was there.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” K-2 said.

She rocked on her heels.

His hair was longer than she’d seen it, and there were deep, dark smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, and he looked thin, and pale, drawn.

 _He was back_.

She wanted to go to him, to throw her arms around his neck, to hug him, and kiss him, and bury her nose in his neck. He was seated at his small, slanted desk, though, and was making no move to stand, or greet her. It made her hesitate. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t even really, properly _looking_ at her.

“How come you didn’t come find me?” she asked.

“I saw you in the hanger when I got in,” he said. “You looked busy, and I had to debrief. I figured we’d catch up later.”

“ _Catch up later_?”

“It means he didn’t want to talk to you at the time,” K-2 said.

“Bodhi said you got in hours ago,” she said. “ _Hours_. I’ve been wasting my time in the hanger with Han all day when I could have been spending the day with you."

He sighed. “I’m tired,” he said. “If you need to be entertained, I’m certain _Han_ is up to the task.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that should you need—”

“Shut _up_ , Kay!”

“Did you _not_ want an answer for the question that you asked?”

Cassian was silent.

“You’re an asshole,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in almost six months. I was starting to worry about you. I was . . .” She shook her head. "Now you’re finally back, and I’m here, too, and you’re acting like _this_?”

“I’m acting like I’m tired, which I am.”

“You’re acting like a piece of stale bantha shit!”

He clenched his jaw.

“Do you have a lot of experience with stale bantha shit?” K-2 asked.

She pursed her lips. “Fine.” She turned on her heel, and stalked out of the compartment.

She was shaking with frustration. What was the _matter_ with him? She made it around the corner before she was half-breathless with rage, and she spun. He didn’t get off that easy. The door had been shut after her, and she stabbed in the code with a fury.

She stormed in. “What’s your problem?”

“I did _not_ expect your return,” K-2 said.

“Shut up.”

“The more you tell me to do that, the less likely I am to do it.”

She closed her eyes, and breathed in, breathed out.

“K-2,” Cassian said.

She opened her eyes. “Stand up,” she said. She was going to ignore K-2’s _asides_.

“What?”

“I can’t yell at you properly when you’re sitting,” she said, glaring at Cassian. “Stand. _Up_.”

He stood, and crossed his arms over his chest.

In that moment, she decided what she was going to do. “K-2, it’s time for you to leave,” she said. She closed the distance to Cassian until she was right in front of him, and had to tilt her head up slightly to hold his gaze with her glare.

“I disagree,” K-2 said.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Stay if you like.” She began to undo Cassian’s belt.

His eyes went wide.

That had gotten a real, actual reaction out of him.

_Good._

She yanked his pants down his thighs, and took his underwear with them.

“Oh,” said K-2.

She dropped to her knees.

“I think I will leave.”

She heard the whoosh of the door sliding closed after K-2.

“Jyn.”

She gripped his thigh for purchase, and licked her palm, took him in her hand, sliding up, and down, and she heard his sharp, gutted intake of breath. She swirled her tongue over the tip of his erection. He swayed just slightly on his feet. She looked up when she took him in her mouth, when she let the tip of him scrape the roof of her mouth. His lips had parted, and his gaze was dark, was pinned on her.

She closed her eyes.

His hand brushed her shoulder, and the back of her head, and when she took him deeper, he curled his fingers in her hair.

Spit gathered on her chin while she bobbed her head up, and down, sucking him.

Her name on his lips was a rough, strangled whisper.

She took the base off his erection in her hand, and twisted her wrist.

His hips jerked forward sharply when he started to come, and he groaned, and fisted his hand in her hair, and she dug her fingers into his thighs, letting him fuck her mouth while he spilled himself against the back of her throat.

She pulled his pants up again after, and rose up, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

He drew her in with his hand on the back of her head, and his nose brushed her cheek when he kissed her.

“Now can you be you again?” she said, soft.

“Do you remember what I told you?” he asked. “Back when we started this? I’m not . . .” He shook his head. “Jyn, I’m not any good at this.”

“I told _you_ that _I’m_ not any good at this,” she said, combing her finger into his hair.

He pulled back slightly just to find her gaze. “I _killed_ —” He stopped.

“It’s okay."

“I’m not a good person,” he said.

“Do you think I am?”

“Yes.”

“We’re the _same,_ Cassian.” She brushed her thumb over his cheek. “If I’m a good person, you’re a good person. You think I haven’t killed people? You think I haven’t done things I wish I could just forget?”

He hugged her.

She turned her face into his neck, breathing in.

“I hate Captain Solo.”

She snorted, and drew away from him. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” He smiled. “Clearly.”

“I guess that just leaves us with one last question.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “Do you want to wash off in the fresher _before_ I give you a haircut, or after?”

\---

She was awake when she heard his breathing change slightly. She frowned. His back was to her. Still. She turned on her side, and scooted over closer to him, wrapping an arm around his middle, and nosing at the back of his neck. His shoulders had tightened with tension. He was trapped in a nightmare.

She shook him. “Cassian.” She tucked her chin over his shoulder, and slipped her hand up under the layers of clothes he wore to find soft, warm skin, and pinch.

He jerked.

She sighed into the curve of his neck.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, and his voice was rough with sleep

“I’m cold,” she said.

He grunted, and when he began to turn, she turned, too. He wrapped his arm around her waist, crowding her with his chest to her back. His breath was hot on her neck.

She felt the tension seep slowly from him.

She’d never really shared a bed with anyone before Cassian. It was hard. She preferred to have a bit of room to curl up, and, if she had to be pressed to his side in a narrow, Alliance-issued cot, she liked to press into his back rather than be caged in under his arm.

Now, though.

She listened to the rhythm of his breathing slow finally with sleep, and her chest was full with sudden, tender affection.

\---

She didn’t know about Hoth until days after the battle. She was undercover on Korrus with a squadron of Pathfinders. It wasn’t until they were aligning the coordinates for the jump to hyperspace that Dameron was able to access a repeating coded message on the comms, and learned that the Empire had found the base.

“There are locations for rendezvous in the case of an emergency,” Dameron said.

They made the jump to hyperspace in silence.

It wasn’t until they were safely in the hanger of a newly reoperating outpost that Jyn had a chance to log on the databank.

Of course, there wasn’t any data listed for Chirrut, or Baze.

Bodhi was safe.

The status of Captain Cassian Andor was _classified_.

That meant that he was alive. If he hadn’t been able to make it off of Hoth in time, his status would say _unknown_. His status was known, and he was alive.

\---

She was attempting to disarm the mines that were scatted over a stretch of cold, barren desert on Fornax 6 when Sutton came on over the radio. They had a projection of the desert with known mines marked, and had to disarm them individually, banking on the hope that the map was current, and accurate, and they weren’t about to misstep, and get blown off the moon. Her fingers were twisted in the wires that connected the sensors of the mine, and she grit her teeth, and ignored the sweat that beaded on her forehead, and the crick in her neck, and the voice that buzzed at her hip.

She didn’t even breathe until she heard the _tick_ that meant the mine was disarmed.

“ _—in interrogation_ ,” Sutton said.

She grabbed the radio, and clicked on. “Disarmed mine thirteen.” She clipped it back on her waist, and pulled her field projection specs up from around her neck, and on again, allowing her to see the map stretch out in front of her.

She watched the mine that she’d disarmed turn green.

There were still nineteen red, activated mines in view on the projection.

To reach the weapons storage facility that was housed on Fornax 6, they needed every last mine disarmed. She began to crawl to the next. The intel they were given on the contents of the facility was limited, but the weapons were clearly of value to warrant this degree of protection.

She didn’t actually learn what Sutton was saying until after they had disarmed the rest of the mines.

She was exhausted, and coated in sweat, and the gray, grainy dust of the moon.

Now it was time to raid the facility.

“Our objective is to get the facility locked down as soon as possible,” Dameron said. “Once we’ve done that, we can hack the databank, and see where they have our spy. Can I put you on point, Corporal?”

“Spy?” Jyn frowned. “I thought we came for weapons.”

He blinked.

“You weren’t listening earlier, were you?” Sutton said. “Our contact? The one who got us the map of the mines? Comm went black yesterday without warning. Today, a message came through from the droid on assignment with him that says he was captured, and is now in holding at the depot.”

“The droid on assignment with him?” Jyn said.

“K-2SO,” Dameron said.

She stared.

“We get in, and lock it down. It’s critical that we can prevent any immediate outgoing transmissions. Otherwise, we’ll have the Empire on us in a matter of minutes.” He paused. “Can I put you on point for this, Corporal?”

“Yes.” Jyn curled her hands into fists. “Put me on point.”

“We get our spy _after_ we take the facility.”

She nodded.

The facility was a series of large, black storehouses in a box of barbed wire fencing. They had removed the mines without being detected, which meant they were already half way done. There were troops on patrol, but they were easy to remove with snipers, and the squadron split once they were within the fence.

It took longer than it should’ve; the troopers put up more of a fight than the rebels had expected from them.

They _were_ going to have the Empire on them in a matter of minutes.

It depended on how close Imperial ships were, and how quickly they decided to respond to the facility’s distress signal.

“Block H,” Sutton said, scanning the screen.

Jyn took off.

They were practiced at this. Sutton would stay in the command center, and doors would spring open for Jyn as soon as she was at them. “Left at the corner,” Sutton said, talking on the commlink, and Jyn turned left. “I’ve got it ready for you.” The door in front of Jyn was sliding open already.

The breath was punched from her lungs.

He was hanging by the binders that were clamped on his wrists. They had stripped off his shirt, and his chest was a patchwork of angry red burns. His head rose slowly at the sound of the door to reveal his pale, sunken face, and he blinked at her with glassy, drugged eyes.

“I’m here,” she said, starting for him. “Cassian, I’m here. I’ve got you.”

That was when she saw the droid that hovered in silence in the corner of the room.

It was an IT-O interrogation unit.

She clenched her jaw. It must have been in the middle of an interrogation when they attacked the facility, and was told to pause. She raised her blaster, and fired. It sparked, and began to vibrate, to make a loud, humming noise. It could defend itself. Saw had taught her where to fire on the little, torturing bastards, though. She fired again, and again, and it began to smoke, and started zooming straight for her, and she shot directly at the small console panel.

It dropped like a rock.

Her eyes flew back to Cassian.

She reached him in three, quick strides. “I’m here,” she breathed. She touched his cheek. How did she get him down? She looked up, looked at the binders on his wrists. She wrapped an arm around his torso. His skin was feverish to touch. She held him against her, and lifted her blaster, shooting the chord that connected the binders, held up his arms.

He would have fallen to the ground if she hadn’t been holding him.

She got him to the cot at the back of the room.

She knelt in front of him, and got to work on the binders, pulling a pin from her pocket to pry open the panel, and get them off him.

They had pinched his wrists so tightly it was going to leave a mark.

She saw, too, that the tips of his fingers were burned. It made anger burn in her gut. The ends of his fingers were blackened, blistered nubs, and his knuckles were swollen, and purple, and they must have damaged his nerves, because his hands were curved, and stiff, unresponsive.

“They had an IT-O unit,” he murmured.

She looked up.

“I didn’t—” He swallowed. “I didn’t tell them anything about your mission.”

“I know,” she said.

His pupils were blown, and seemed to struggle to find her, to focus on her. She cupped his face in her hand, stroking his cheek with her thumb, and pushed a hand into his damp, knotted hair, combing it out of his face. “I thought of you,” he said, swallowing. “I knew if I talked, you’d be . . .” She clutched the back of his neck, and kissed him, tasting the tang of blood. She pressed her forehead to his for a moment, closing her eyes, and breathing in. It was alright. _He_ was alright. She hadn’t lost him. She stood up the rest of the way.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

He nodded.

He _was_ able to push to his feet, and to walk, though his movements were stiff, and halting, and she kept her arm around his back.

“They took K-2 for reprogramming,” he said. “I have a backup. We’ve just got to find him.”

“I will.”

In the corridor, the sound of the facility’s alarm system was deafening, and it was clear that nobody was going to take the time to turn it off.

They had to separate.

Outside, she waved one of the transports to a stop. The squadron had commandeered the facility’s handful of small, onsite cargo transports in order to move the weapons out of the facility, across the stretch of desert, and to the half a dozen cargo shuttles they’d brought. Cassian was going to hitch a ride. Rhee jumped from the back to help Cassian get up, and on, and didn’t try arguing with Jyn when she shook her head at his offer of a hand up. She thought Cassian might protest being driven away to safety, though. He didn’t. He held her gaze until Rhee slammed the door, and the transport was driving off again.

Over the commlink, she told Sutton to look for information on K-2.

“There isn’t time,” Sutton said.

“If you don’t help me, it’ll take me longer.”

Dameron was shouting at her over the radio to _move her ass_ when she found the surplus tech storage at last, and found him.

He was disabled.

She didn’t know whether he was reprogrammed yet, and she was hesitant to find out, but she couldn’t carry his giant, bulking weight by herself, and Sutton had taken off already. She needed him to walk. _Here’s to hoping_ , she thought, and she pried the circuit breaker control off him.

He knocked her backwards with the speed at which he sat up.

He blinked.

“Where is Cassian?” he asked

She choked on a breath of relief. “Fine.” She scrambled to her feet. “He’s fine. Come on. We have to go. _Now_.”

The transports were gone already. They had to sprint to the ships. Several had taken off already, and the rest were starting to rise. There was one that was powered on, and waiting. They ran up the ramp, and were greeted by Dameron’s glare, and a yell to lift off.

“I had to get K-2,” she said, panting.

His glare didn’t peter off until they were out of the atmosphere, and had made the jump to hyperspace.

“Where’s Captain Andor?”

“Major,” K-2 said.

“What?”

“He was made a major last week.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Where’s _Major_ Andor?” He had to be on one of the shuttles. She was certain.

“Tell the major that she’s with us,” Gasguv said, speaking on a commlink.

Her gaze snapped over to him.

He smirked.

She didn’t know what he thought was amusing. She’d asked about Cassian, and he, apparently, had asked about her, too. So? It wasn’t a secret that Cassian was her. Something. That he was _hers._ You couldn’t keep secrets like that on cramped, crowded bases full of restless, nosy people who were starved for entertainment.

“Tell him that K-2 is with me,” she said, glaring.

He nodded.

The look on her face must’ve been enough to make it clear she wasn’t in the mood for _shenanigans._

K-2 was surprisingly quiet.

She was fine with that. They sat in silence. She thought of Cassian’s ruined hands, and had to curl her hands into fists.

“Cassian is going to be angry with me,” he said.

“What?” She blinked. “Why?”

He was staring at nothing in front of them. “I took his lullaby from him. He keeps it stitched in the lining of his jacket, you know. Or he thought he did, but I took it, and put a kernel of corn in place of the pill. I calculated that his chances of recognizing the change in shape were only 12 percent. It wasn’t just for this mission. I’ve always done it. Replaced it.” He glanced at her, at her coat.

It was Cassian’s coat.

She frowned. “I don’t . . .” She shook her head.

It startled her when he reached for the coat suddenly, unzipped it, and tore at the lining of the collar. “See?” He held up a small corn kernel.

“Um.” She was at a loss. “ _Why_ are you hiding corn in his clothes?”

“I estimated that I’d render the pill unnecessary in the majority of situations,” he said.

“The pill?”

“Lullaby.” He turned his head to stare at her. “The pill that rebel intelligence agents always carry with them in case they are captured, and need to take their own lives.”

“ _What_?"

“You did not know,” he said.

“No.”

It was quiet.

She couldn’t believe Cassian kept a _suicide_ pill hidden in the lining of his clothes. Or meant to. Did he try to take it yesterday, and find a kernel of corn. “You say that you’d _render the pill unnecessary._ ” She looked at K-2. “What does that mean?” Did he mean to imply that _he_ would kill Cassian if it came to it?

“I estimated that I would be able to save him.”

Oh.

He’d secretly replaced Cassian’s pill with _corn_ because he refused to believe he wouldn’t be able to save Cassian when he needed to. She almost couldn’t believe it. It was so strangely, perfectly _human._

“You were right,” she said.

“No.”

“I’m serious. We knew to look for him because _you_ sent a transmission that told us he’d been captured. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have known. We would have raided the facility, got the weapons, and left without him. _You_ saved him.”

“Cassian told me this would be the case,” he said, considering her.

“What?”

“He said you would be nice to me if I were nice to you.”

She snorted.

“Yes.” He returned his gaze to the front. “I thought it was ridiculous, too.”

She was taken to debrief as soon as they landed at one of several small, provisional bases. The moment she’d given her recollection of events, she was out the door, and on her way to medical. Cassian was sleeping.

The anxious, uncertain knot that had formed in the pit of her stomach loosened slightly at the sight of him.

He was fine.

They had tortured him, but he was going to recover.

She sat on the edge of his bead, raking her gaze over him. His hands were wrapped in thick white bandages, and he had what looked like strips of bacta on his chest, too. They must have used sonic on him, too, because his face was clear of grime. There was a single, stubborn lock of hair falling into his forehead, and she couldn’t help reaching out, and brushing it carefully back.

\---

She was struck for a moment with cold, numbing disbelief when she learned that they were doing it again, that they were building another Death Star. “We _took_ the plans,” she said, gaping at Dameron. But they must have kept a backup. They must have prepared for a scenario in which they lost the plans, and needed to start from scratch. They were building it again.

Would it still have the flaw of her father’s design?

Or had that been found, and fixed?

Had everything they’d done for years just been to delay the inevitable?

\---

She watched the sky light up with the end of the Death Star. Again. She didn’t know whether to cry, or to laugh. They’d done it. _Again_. Tears burned her eyes. She reached under the collar of her shirt to grasp her necklace, holding it tightly in her fist.

“It is as the Force wills it,” Chirrut said.

She glanced at him.

His face was turned up toward the sky, and his lips were parted in a bright, half-breathless smile. But at her gaze, he turned. She smiled, and wiped at her cheeks, and when he touched her shoulder, she hugged him.

She began to pull away from him to turn to Baze, but Baze was already right there, and he pulled the both of them into a hug, making her laugh.

They’d live to fight another day.

Bodhi was alive. She was certain. He’d helped to destroy the Death Star, and she knew he’d made it out.

Cassian, too.

She didn’t know where he was, didn’t know when she’d see him again.

She would, though. She knew it. She hadn’t been filled with this much certainty in a long, long time. She hadn’t been filled with this much hope. Suddenly, she was full to bursting with it.

\---

There were planets that remained in the control of the Empire, of course There were loyalists in every last corner of the galaxy. There were plans the Emperor had left for execution in the event of his death, and his officers were executing them without a moment of hesitation.

Jyn was dead on her feet when she arrived at the base in the middle of the night.

She’d spent three months jumping from planet to planet under the command of a reckless, perpetually undaunted Solo.

She was going to sleep for days.

In the dark of her compartment, she peeled off her coat, and toed off her boots, took off her holsters, and kicked off her trousers. She was sore. She’d ended up taking a few nasty hits that were definitely, definitely going to leave a mark. She might’ve even fractured a rib. She’d have to go to medical in the morning. It wasn’t until she was lifting the sheets on the bed that she realized he was there.

She was losing her edge.

She hadn’t even heard the sound of his breathing.

He was lying on his side, facing the wall, and she threw a leg over his waist, climbing on top of him, and pressing her face into his neck, rubbing her nose against the stubble on the underside of his jaw.

“Jyn?”

She shifted onto her side, only for his arm to wrap around her, and pull her to his chest, pull her close enough that she was cocooned in his warmth, and his hot, sleep sour breath fanned across her cheeks.

His hand slipped up under her shirt to rest on the small of her back.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I wasn’t sure I’d get to see you,” he said. “I brought you chocolate.” There was a smile in the threads of his rough, sleepy voice.

“I’ll have it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

She nodded. “I don’t want to move right now.” She touched his cheek, toying with his earlobe, and rubbing her thumb against his stubble, and found herself fading.

\---

She woke at the sound of pounding on the door. _What the_ _fuck_? In a blink, Cassian had his feet on the floor, and a blaster in his hand. She pushed up on her elbow. There was a roar from the other side of the door. It was Chewie. Han had sent him to fetch Jyn. Again. She sighed, and dropped onto her back, covering her eyes for a moment. “I’m coming!” she shouted. Han was the _worst_.

“Chewbacca?” Cassian said.

She nodded. “It can’t possibly be time to go again.” The lights in the compartment hadn’t even turned on yet to signal it was morning.

“It must be.”

Chewie knocked again.

“Tell the peedunky that I’m _coming_!” Jyn yelled.

Cassian put his blaster in his pack, and scrubbed at his face for a moment before turning to her.

She sat up.

“I guess we should’ve fooled around last night,” he said, trying at humor.

She hugged him.

She really didn’t want to leave. She was tired of mission after mission, of rootlessness, of never knowing when she would see Cassian. She wanted to stay, to hug him and kiss him and fuck him, to eat with him, and joke with him, and brush her teeth in the fresher with him, to _be_ with him.

He made to let go first.

But when she just tightened her hold on him, he ran his hand up her back, and pressed a kiss to her temple, holding her.

\---

Mordal was a dry, dusty planet, and most of the landscape was endless, uninhabitable dessert. There was a large, sprawling city in the north, however, that was known for trade in old, decommissioned tech, transport identification papers, and illegal, high-grade weapons _._ It had taken the rebels a _month_ of fighting to take the city from a pocket of military Imperial loyalists.

She found the boys when she was helping to clear the buildings.

It was a small, ransacked residence.

There was a bedroom, and a small sitting room, and a kitchen, and she opened every cabinet, every closet door, every wall panel.

She’d come close earlier to getting her head blown clean off by a Gand who jumped out of a cabinet in a refresher. She wasn’t leaving any door unopened. She was working her way through the cabinets of the kitchen when she heard a clatter from within the cupboard.

She narrowed her eyes.

The comm in her ear buzzed with a “third floor’s clear!” from Sutton.

She kicked in the door with her blaster up, and was looking at a pair of small, sunken-faced children.

She gaped.

Slowly, she lowered her blaster.

But when she took a step toward them, the older of the boys scrabbled back further in the closet, and dragged the small, mop-haired boy in his lap with him.

She held up her hands. “It’s alright. I won’t hurt you. It’s alright.” She squatted.

He said something soft in reply.

She didn’t know what. It wasn’t Basic. She recognized it, though. “That’s . . . “ It was Festian. She bit her lip, and tried to think of something to say. Cassian spoke Festian to her when he woke her from a nightmare, soothing her with the cadence of the words, and the timbre of his voice. “ _Estoy aquí_ ,” she tried, and the words were broken, were wrong on her tongue. She plowed on. “ _Estoy contigo._ ” She held out her hand. “ _Yo me ocuparé de ti_ ,” she told him.

He rose to his feet, clutching the toddler to his side.

She smiled.

She had no idea how old he was. Five? Six? Seven? She was never any good at guessing the age of children.

“It’s alright,” she said.

“ _Este es mi hermano_ ,” he said.

She nodded.

He took her hand.

She led him out of the cupboard, and out of the kitchen. On the commlink, she told Sutton that she’d found a couple of kids. After a minute of walking them slowly to the door of the apartment, she bent, and reached for the toddler. “I’m going to carry him, alright?” she said, miming at lifting him.

She couldn’t really understand his reply, but his expression was open, and unworried.

She picked up the toddler.

The moment she had him on her hip, the boy took her hand in his again.

In the street, she got Dameron on the commlink.

The rebels had set up a kitchen, and were ladling soup into bowls for anyone who lined up, and giving ration packets. She got in line with the boys, and after they had gotten their bowls, she found a piece of broken, relatively flat debris for them to sit on, and eat. The boy drank straight from his bowl, and when he noticed her gaze, he smiled at her with full, bulging cheeks, and soup leaking from the corners of his lips.

She smiled, too.

She glanced at the toddler, and when he looked up, she stuck her tongue out.

It made him giggle at her.

She did her trick with the coin to keep them occupied when they were done with their soup. They didn’t have to speak Basic to understand. The boy was delighted by the game, yelling, and jumping, and pulling at her hands in search of the coin.

“Erso!” It was Dameron. “You need me to translate for you?”

She stood.

His forehead creased slightly at the sight of the kids.

“I think they speak a dialect that's similar to Festian,” she told him. “I found them hiding in a cupboard. I don’t know how long they were there. The residence was in shambles. It looked like it had been ransacked.”

He nodded, and knelt in front of the boy, speaking to him in slow, precise Festian.

He got a reply.

“What is he saying?” she asked.

“He’s saying that his grandmother hid him under the bed with his brother when troopers came, and never got him out again, and when his papa didn’t come back either, he decided to go looking for him. He couldn't find him. He's been on his own for a while. His grandmother said it was his job to look after his brother. He . . . when he heard blasters firing, he went into an apartment, and hid in the cupboard with his brother. He’s saying . . .” He frowned. “He’s asking me if his teacher is dead, too.”

She swallowed.

“¿Cuál es tu nombre?” Dameron asked.

“Ras,” said the boy.

“His name is Ras,” Dameron said, and he spoke to the boy again.

It seemed to upset him, because he began to shake his head, and to gesture, and to speak in a hurried, anxious tone. If Dameron was trying to pacify him with his reply, it really didn’t work. The boy rocked on the heels of his feet, and pointed at Jyn.

“What is he saying?” she asked.

The boy looked at Jyn. “ _No me dejes! Por favor! Seré muy bueno_ _!_ ” His gaze was pleading with her.

“What is he saying?”

“He’s saying that . . . he’ll be good. Don’t leave him, please, and he’ll be good. Everyone always leaves. Mama, and Grandmother, and.” He sighed. “ _Fuck_.” He rose to his feet. “There’s an orphanage. Building was destroyed, of course. We got the children to safety, though. There’s a tent for them up the street. It’s the best we can do for them, and for _them._ ” He nodded his head at the boys.

“Okay.” She nodded. “Thanks."

He left.

“Ras?” she said, looking at the boy.

He nodded.

She smiled. “Jyn.” She pointed at herself. “I’m going to take you to a place where you’ll be safe, alright? You’re going to be safe.”

He nodded.

She picked up the toddler. He put his head on her shoulder, and his breath was hot on her neck. She took Ras’s hand. “Come on.” She started up the street to find the tent.

It was packed with children when she got there.

She searched for an adult, but the few that she found were busy with children.

She bit her lip.

Ras leaned his head against her arm.

Finally, she caught the eye of a harried older woman.

She came to them, and, without a word, she reached for the toddler. Jyn gave him over to her. “You know anything about them?” she asked. “Age, or?” She felt the forehead of the toddler.

“Sorry, I . . .”

“Fine.”

“I think they speak Festian. Or a variant. I haven’t been able to get much information out of them.”

The woman spoke quickly in Festian to Ras.

“No,” he said.

She nodded. “Come.” She held her hand out.

He shook his head.

“It’s alright,” Jyn said. “She’ll take care of you.” She smiled.

But when she tried to give his hand to the woman, he jerked back quickly, and, somehow, kept a hold of Jyn’s hand in doing so. “ _No me dejes_!” His eyes were wide, and she didn’t know what he was saying when he went on, and on.

“It’s okay.”

He shook his head.

“ _Estoy aquí_ ,” she said. “You’re safe. _Estoy contigo_.”

He hugged her.

She looked up helplessly at the woman.

Sighting, the woman just grabbed him by the arm. “Come on.” She began to drag him away from Jyn. He was crying. She pulled up his arm, and spoke to him with quick, blunt words. He was quiet. She led him further into the tent, and he went stumbling with her, but he glanced over his shoulder at Jyn.

\---

In a lot of ways, her mother was simply a feeling to her. She remembered the warmth of her mother’s hand kneading dough with her own, and the smell of soap, and the comfort of falling to sleep to the stories of the stars. She remembered that she had thought her mother was funny. She remembered that she had loved her mother. She didn’t really remember the sound of her mother’s voice, or the shape of her mother’s face, didn’t have any real, clear memories of her. She thought of her mother, and was wistful for something she couldn’t quite recall.

On the ship, she brushed her hand over Ras’s dark, unruly hair. She smoothed it down. It seemed like something her mother might’ve done.

\---

The boys were sleeping in Cassian’s bed when the door slid open. “Jyn,” Cassian said, striding in. She put a finger to her lips, and he followed the tilt of her head to where the boys were lying in his bed. She hadn’t known that he’d be back. His gaze flew back to her, and his forehead was pinched with confusion.

She took his hand, and pulled him out the compartment.

“Where are those children from?”

“Mordal.”

He stared, and, after a beat, shook his head. “I was told you gave your resignation.”

She nodded.

“What?” His gaze searched her face. “Why?”

“I did my part,” she said. “I helped. Now I’m . . . I think I’m done.”

“I see.”

“I found the children on Mordal,” she continued. She explained the way she’d found them, and how she’d tried to talk to them. “He was speaking in Festian, or a variant. I tried to calm him down, and talked to him, and it helped. It _worked_. He trusted me.” She explained how she had taken the two of them to an orphanage. “It was a tent, and it was crowded, and it—it _smelled_ , and I . . . I couldn’t just leave them there.”

“I didn’t know you could speak Festian.”

“I can’t.”

“Then what did you tell him?”

“I . . . I told him that he was safe, you know. He was fine. Everything was okay. I told him the stuff that you tell me when I have a nightmare.”

“The stuff _I_ say?”

She nodded.

“That’s—that’s not what I say,” he said.

“It’s not?”

He sighed. “No,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. “It’s not.”

“What did I tell him?”

“I think you might have told him that you’ll take care of him.”

“Oh.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“I want to.”

“What?”

“I want to take care of them,” she said. “I want to _keep_ them. I can. They’re orphans. They don’t have anybody. I know what that’s like. I can be . . . _somebody_ for them.”

“You’re going to _adopt_ two children?” he said.

“Yes?”

He opened his mouth, and closed it.

She bit her lip.

“This is why you’re resigning?” he asked. “For them? To—take care of them?”

“Sort of.” She sighed. “There is always going to be more to do. More to fight. But it’s like I said. I did my part, and, lately, I . . .” She shrugged. “I feel like I’m here because I have to be, and not because I want to be, not because they even really need me, and I—I don’t know how much more I can take. The war is finally, _really_ coming to an end, and I want it to be over for me, too. I want to . . . move on.”

“This is how you do that?”

“I guess.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve stayed as long as I have partly just because I didn’t know what else I would do. I still don’t really know, but I . . . I want to do this. I _have_ to do this. For me, and for them. I’ll figure out the rest along the way.” She gave him half a smile. “I’ve always been good at that.”

He was silent.

“Would you . . . do you think you might possibly want to do it with me?”

He stared.

“I know it’s a lot to put on you suddenly. I mean, I haven’t seen you in, what? It’s been a month? _More_? But I just . . .”

“I’ve been at war my whole life.”

“I know.”

“I’m not meant for anything else. I don’t know anything about children. I don’t know how to . . .”

She nodded.

He touched her cheek, and she leaned into his touch, into his palm. His expression was impossible to read. He drew her in closer, and hugged her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and she closed her eyes, and curled her fingers into his jacket, clung to him.

She’d missed him.

He drew away from her. “I need to talk to the princess. She’s gotten in a couple of _disagreements_ with Draven, and wants a debrief from me directly now. I just wanted to. See you. See what was going on.” He smiled tiredly at her. “We’ll, um. We’ll talk more later?”

“Sure.”

It wasn’t until after he’d gone that she realized why it felt like her throat had closed up. She wasn’t just leaving the Alliance. She lay in bed with the boys, and realized that she was leaving _him._

\---

There was a finger in her ear. She blinked. It pressed in again, and he giggled. She turned her head, and saw the baby was awake, and was poking at her. Quickly, her gaze moved past him to where Cassian was sitting on the ground with Ras, and the two of them were playing some strange game where they slapped at each other’s hands.

Ras said something in Festian.

Cassian’s reply was interrupted with his laughter when Ras slapped his hand.

“Morning,” Jyn said.

Ras began to reply eagerly, and she didn’t understand a word.

“Either I need to learn some Festian, or he needs to learn some Basic,” she said, shaking her head.

“I gathered some information you might like to know,” Cassian said. “Ras is five years old. His brother, Turi, is two years old. Ras’s hobbies include collecting rocks, hunting for lizards, and playing a game with pollnuts that I’ve never heard of, and suspect he made up."

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry we commandeered your bed.”

“It’s fine.” He paused. “I told K-2 about your plans.” His lips twitched with a smile. “He asked me what he was supposed to do on a farm.”

“What?”

“Exactly,” he said. His eyes were bright. “It seems that when I said you were resigning to care for a pair of orphans, he assumed that I was resigning with you, and we were going to move to a farm.”

“Why a _farm_?”

“¡ _Cassian_!” Ras said. _“¿Podemos ir a desayunar ahora? Estoy muriendo de hambre. ¡Pude comer un bantha_!”

She didn’t know what Cassian said in reply, but it made Ras jump up, and run to the bed, tugging his brother off, and tugging him to the fresher. He shouted over his shoulder, and Jyn heard the water turn on. She raised her eyebrows at Cassian.

“I told him he had to wash up before we could eat,” he said.

“Right.”

He hesitated. “There’s a place,” he said. “I have only been there once, and it wasn’t for long. I was on assignment. But when I was there, I thought it was the most beautiful place in the galaxy. I’ve never forgotten it. Once in a while, I’ve thought that maybe . . .”

“What?”

“It could be a place to make a home,” he said.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“You don’t know where it is.’

“You’ll be there?”

“Yes.”

“Then it sounds like home to me.”

Ras came running out of the fresher with dripping wet hands, pulling his wet, toddling brother after him, and beaming.

\---

“I’m going to miss you,” Bodhi said, sitting in the cockpit of the small passenger ship with her. Cassian had gotten a hold of the damaged, decommissioned ship, and Bodhi had helped him to repair it, to replace the hyperdrive, and repair the engine. “You’re really done? Completely? You’re just going to go live a nice, normal life?”

“I guess,” she said. “I’m kind of making it up as I go along.”

He smiled.

They hadn’t spent much time together in the last few years. At the start, he’d been the constant in her life. Day in, day out. Mission after mission. But he had volunteered to join the pilots in the Battle of Hoth without a moment of hesitation, and it had earned him a position on a pilot strike team. They still saw each other plenty, but it wasn’t like when he was in the Pathfinders with her.

Now she had no idea when she’d see him next.

“Bodhi,” she said, and stopped, because she didn’t know how to say it.

“I love you,” he said.

She blinked.

“I mean, like a sister!” His eyes were wide. “You’re the closest thing I have to family, and I . . . I just wanted say that. Say that I kind of—just in my head, I think of you as my sister. That’s all.”

She smiled. “You’re my family, too.”

He nodded.

“Here.” She pulled a flask from her pocket with a grin. “I stole it off Han.” She took a sip, passing it to him. Han had called her “kid” when she’d said goodbye to him, and tried to ruffle her hair. She deserved his hooch after everything she’d put up with.

Bodhi’s eyes watered just slightly, and he coughed.

She laughed.

“I don’t drink very much,” he said.

“I never would have guessed,” she said, and she took it back from him with a smile. It was quiet. She was going to miss him, too.

\---

It took a while to fix up the home that Cassian got cheap by bartering with one of his old, wartime contacts.

The place was looted and in disrepair, had a roof that was caved in, and doors that couldn’t close properly, and several plants growing up between the floorboards, and in the sink, and up the railings of the stairs. “Did you bring us here to die?” K-2 asked, picking up a dusty, dented teapot with a growth of spongy blue moss in the spout, and holding it like he thought it was diseased. They slept on the floor of the kitchen that very first night, because it was all they had time to clear, and it gave a view of the stars through the jagged, gaping hole in the ceiling.

In the days that followed, they got to work.

They cleared, and cleaned. They repaired the roof. They fixed the wiring in the house. They replaced the doors. They bartered for furniture, for cookware, and blankets, and holopic projection tablets.

The boys were eager to assist in tasks, and took particular pride in fetching on command. Cassian began hiding tools at night after they had gone to sleep just to keep them occupied in the morning. “I can’t find my wrench,” he’d say, and the hunt to find it would take up at least half an hour.

Conveniently, he’d have something to do for half an hour that did not require his wrench.

And when, inevitably, the boys became more of a hindrance than a help, Jyn took them for walks in the forest that housed their new, hand-me-down home.

Cassian was right about Takodana.

It was _beautiful_.

Green was everywhere. The trees reached until the tops were hidden in the clouds. There was a lake in the heart of the forest that shone like glass in the sunlight.

She began to teach the boys to swim.

She discovered that Cassian had never, ever learned to swim, and made him come in the water for a lesson, too. He was _terrible_. She laughed herself breathless, and kissed him in apology, kissed and kissed him.

There was time for that.

They could be together in a simple, leisurely way.

In a way, it was kind of strange. Jyn was waiting for some, awful inevitable change. This was it, though. The more time passed, the more rooted she felt. _This was it_. They were here, and together, and that wasn’t just the reality of now. It was the future. They were here, and together, and they were going to stay.

She found Cassian washing up in the refresher. He had stripped to his underwear, and was splashing his face with water, and she could see where he’d washed the grime off his arms, because a dark, smudged line cut his bicep. She leaned on the doorframe, and watched him dry off.

She pinked in the sun, and peeled.

He tanned.

His skin was darker than ever, and she’d never been treated to the luxury of seeing his skin this much.

“How long do we have before a tiny person tries to crawl into our bed?” he asked.

“I talked to them about that.”

“Is that so?”

“They’re going to stay in their beds from now on.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I was very firm with them,” she said.

“Sure.” He nodded. “I’d say that means we have, what, about twenty minutes? Half an hour?”

“Shut up.”

He kissed her.

She ran her hands up the planes of his stomach, and slid them around to grasp at the soft skin of his back, pulling him closer, and deepening the kiss. He started to back her slowly out of the fresher, and towards the bed. She broke the kiss to pull her shirt up over her head, and they undressed her quickly.

She sank onto the bed, kissing him, and clutching at his shoulders when he pressed her back to the mattress, and kissed her throat, bent his head to her breasts. His mouth trailed down her stomach, and he sank to his knees, spreading her legs, and burying his head between her thighs. She grasped at his hair, and arched off the bed, seeing the pinprick of white, bright stars through heavy, lidded eyes.

It had been his idea to put a skylight in the ceiling of their bedroom.

She loved it.

She loved _him_.

“Can you—” She gasped. “— _hurry up_?”

He chuckled.

She yanked on his hair. He could get her off in a matter of minutes, she knew. He was just _choosing_ to be a tease.

“I thought we had time,” he murmured, and his breath washed hotly against her slit.

“You—”

The words got caught in her throat when his tongue curled around her clit.

Her back arched off the bed when she came.

His lips were slick with her wetness when he trailed sloppy kisses up her belly, and mouthed at the side of her breast, and kissed her on the lips. She let him roll her over to lie on her stomach. He pulled away slightly to shuck his underwear, and was back, was holding her hips, and dropping wet kisses to the knots of her spine, and she could feel him hard against her ass.

She pushed up, and onto her knees, and he took a hold of her hips.

He kissed the back of her neck, and she sucked in a breath when the tip of him nudged at her folds, when he began to push into her.

He slid in easily, filling her.

“If one of them tries barging in here right now, I’m not stopping,” he breathed.

She laughed.

He began to fuck her with slow, measured strokes.

She curled her fingers in the sheets. “They’re bound to get an eyeful at some awkward point,” she panted. “If you want that day to be today, fine.”

“Glad you agree,” he said, tightening his grip on her hips, and thrusting in faster.

She gasped.

He always ended up losing control when they did it like this.

“ _Cass_ —”

He grunted.

She closed her eyes. “ _There_. Cassian, there. _Harder_.” She pushed back against him.

He drove into her.

She reached between her legs to rub furiously at her clit because she was close, because she was desperate.

She came suddenly with a cry. Her arm on the bed gave out on her, and she lost her balance, half-falling on her side, and pressing her forehead to her forearm. He swore. His grip on her hips was bruising, was going to leave a mark, and he lost any semblance of rhythm, fucking her wildly. She was dazed with the delicious, trembling aftershocks of her orgasm, and he was unrelenting.

He choked on her name when he came, and he collapsed on her back, panting.

“I _told_ you I talked to them,” she said.

His breath of laughter was hot on her neck. He rose up, and pulled out of her, falling onto his back right beside her on the bed, and she let her knees give out, and lay on her belly, feeling her hear slowly calm. He reached a hand out to touch her back in a lazy, quiet gesture of familiarity.

She could feel him trickling out of her, and down her thigh.

“Give it time,” he said.

She turned her face to look at him. “No. I’d prefer to enjoy my victory as long as it lasts.”

He smiled.

They got up, and cleaned up, pulling on clothes, and turning off the lights, climbing into the bed.

“I want to repair the water filtration system in the morning,” he said, settling in, and wrapping an arm around her.

“Did you get the part?”

He nodded. “It came at a price. Specifically, K-2 offended an Onodone to the point that you might not want to be seen at the castle with him for a while. Give it a year.” His stubble scratched against her skin at the press of his lips to her shoulder. “Or two.” She felt the shape of his smile.

“He’s restless, isn’t he?” she asked.

“He likes to be useful.”

She bit her lip. “What about you?” She couldn’t help herself.

“Me?”

“Do you . . . are you restless?”

He pressed in closer, and nosed at her neck. “No, mi amor. I’m not.”

“Me, neither.” She tucked her hand under her cheek. “I thought—I was afraid that I would be, but I’m not.”

“Good.”

She closed her eyes. She sighed. She began to turn, and push at his shoulder. “Turn.” She ignored his huff, because he did what he was told, and turned, allowing her to cuddle up against his back.

\---

The little they had in the way of credits was gone before long. Takodana was a haven of travelers, though. It was easy to find repair work. People needed work done on tech, and transports, on ships, and droids, and everything in between, and while Jyn was fairly good with that kind of thing, Cassian was excellent. They became respected regulars at Maz’s, and found work daily from foreigners.

Maz was actually the first to say “Mrs. Andor” to her.

It startled her.

She ended up failing to correct the woman, and was left to gape at her when she walked off.

“She isn’t _wrong_ ,” K-2 said.

“What?”

“You are cohabitating, _and_ sharing the responsibility of childrearing, _and_ copulating on a quite frequent basis. There are several planetary systems in which the two of you are already considered married. I believe the tradition on Fest is for a male to prepare a meal for a female, and take her to bed after, and they are deemed legally married.”

“That is . . .”

“Yes,” K-2 said, “that is where Cassian was born, and lived until he was eleven.”

“. . . _ridiculous_ ,” she said.

“Jyn!” It was Cassian. “Where is the splicer?”

She found the splicer, and gave it to Ras to take to Cassian.

“He makes dinner every night,” she said, lowering her voice, “because I’m bad at following the recipe, and everything I cook is lumpy, or burned, or. Bad.”

“You?” K-2 drawled. “Bad at following a clear, written directive? Shocking.”

She glared.

Maz wasn’t the last to make the assumption, of course.

She worked alongside Cassian with the boys at their heels day in, day out. They shared a house, shared a life. She didn’t bother with correcting the notion that they were married, because, in the end, well, they _were_.

He thought it, too.

She heard him refer to “my wife” in conversation with a Blarina.

Her name wasn’t about to change, though. If Maz wanted to call her Mrs. Andor, fine. She knew her name. She was Jyn Erso, and her husband was Cassian Andor, and they had a reputation for good, fair work, and “the wife will knock your teeth out if you try to run off without paying up, though,” Maz said, pointing a man to them.

\---

It was nearly a year to the day they resigned that the princess contacted Cassian to ask if he’d heard anything about a former Imperial officer in hiding on Takodana.

He had.

Just because there wasn’t anything they were supposed to be listening for, didn’t mean either of them had stopped. It was who they were. They listened, and knew more than they should about everything that happened at the castle, about every ship that landed at the busy, unofficial port, and every smuggler, outcast, and explorer who passed quietly through.

Cassian was able to write a report for the princess.

Three weeks later, Jyn’s two day trek with K-2 brought her to the loyalist’s small, hidden refuge in a range of mountains, and she used a secure, private comm server to transfer the coordinates.

\---

The boys grew up with traders and pilots and smugglers for friends. There wasn’t really any sort of school for them. They had to spend their days at the castle with half a pair of eyes on them, helping with the day’s repair job on occasion, and causing a bit of trouble for Maz the rest of the time.

They got their education from impromptu patchwork lessons.

Jyn taught them the basics of survival. They knew which plants were edible, the most effective ways to hotwire a ship, signs that a person was lying. She taught them what Saw taught her.

They were good little pupils for her.

Cassian was best at teaching them history, at telling them stories of the galaxy, and teaching them about geography in the process, and different sentient species, and cultures, and languages. His storytelling was enchanting to hear, and the boys were happy to listen to him for hours, handing him tools while he worked, and talked. He spoke to them in Festian, too, to keep them from forgetting the language.

K-2 was in charge of the rest of their education.

He was responsible for teaching them reading, and writing, mathematics, and science, and computers.

They weren’t always _keen_ on his efforts. Still. They learned.

“Mama!”

Both of them called her that now. She hadn’t told him that they could, or that they should. Ras had just started to do it one day, and Turi had followed his lead.

She _was_ their mama.

“What?”

“Do you know what 37 times 37 is?”

She blinked.

“1, 369!” Ras said.

“How do _you_ know that?” she asked, amused.

“I’m smart.”

“Clearly.”

“Mama, do you know what 38 times 38 is?”

“Is this what Kay teaches you?”

“1,444! It’s easy. You do 30 times 30, plus 30 times 8, plus 30 times 8, plus 8 times 8!”

“Easy,” she said.

He grinned.

Ras was full of grins, of glee, and bravado, and joy. He was loud, and loved to be the center of attention, and he was fearless, would make conversation with anyone he happened to cross paths with. He was ten years old, and, already, he was trouble.

Turi was quieter.

He tended to sneak behind Jyn’s leg when someone new was around. If he was curious, he’d take her hand, and hold it over his face, would peek between her fingers at the strangers. And when he grew bored with the stranger, he’d hide behind her completely, and hug her waist from behind, pressing his cheek to the small of her back.

He was her shy, sweet boy.

She loved them in a way she hadn’t thought was possible before them, loved them with an affection that couldn’t be tempered.

There were times when she doubted if this life was good enough life for them.

Shouldn’t they get to have friends? To go to a school, and to have a bright, certain future in the new, slowly rebuilding Republic? Didn’t they deserve more than a blunt, sharp-edged woman like Jyn for a mother?

But when she saw Cassian with them, she knew.

They couldn’t do better than Cassian for a father. This might not be the best life for them, but they’d grow up safe, and loved. They’d always have each other, and they’d have Cassian, and, for what it was worth, they’d have her, too.

\---

She came out of the fresher, and could hear them down the hallway. “The likelihood of you making us pancakes is 98.7 percent,” Ras said. His voice had taken on a tone that made her smile.

“No.”

“I ran the data.”

“You made that number up.”

“My analysis finds that the odds of our surviving the day without any pancakes is 33.2 percent,” Turi said.

“This is ludicrous.”

“Pan _cakes_!” Ras said, deciding to chant. “Pan _cakes_! Pan _cakes_! Pan _cakes_!”

“Should we save K-2 from them?” Cassian asked.

She glanced at him in the bed. He had an arm behind his head, and a sleepy, playful smile on his face. She smiled, too. “No.” She pulled the sheets away from him, and climbed on the bed, throwing a leg over his thighs, and straddling him. “He loves it,” she said. Cassian rose up to clutch her face, to kiss her.

\---

She didn’t even know she was pregnant until she was nearly three months. How could she? They weren’t trying. She’d assumed it wasn’t _possible_ after everything she’d put her body through. After all, they’d gone years without even bothering to use any form of protection. If she _had_ thought there was any chance, she would have made the effort to prevent a pregnancy. She wasn’t fit to bring a child into the world.

Now she knew why she’d been plagued with exhaustion for weeks, why she’d been sick several times in the dead of night.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

Cassian cut his cheek in surprise, and his eyes flew to her. For a moment, they stood in silence in the fresher. Soup dripped down his neck, and a trickle of blood mixed with the soap on his cheek.

“I’m certain.” She bit the inside of her lip. “I’m going to have a baby.”

He nodded.

“I figured you’d want to know,” she added.

“Yes.”

It was quiet.

He returned his gaze to the mirror. He lifted the blade up again. There was a tremor in his hand. She took the blade, and made him turn his face to her. Carefully, she finished the job for him.

He washed the soap off his face.

She handed him a towel.

“I thought your breasts seemed bigger,” he said.

“Seriously?”

His lips twitched with a smile, and he reached a hand to cup her cheek, to pull her into his chest. He kissed her forehead, and hugged her. “We can do this,” he murmured. “It’ll take after you.” He turned his face to press a kiss to her temple.

“I love you,” she said, curling her fingers in the back of his shirt.

He rubbed her back.

“I’m scared.”

His hand went still on her back. “Me, too,” he said. It startled her when he pulled her shirt up out of her pants in order to slip his hand under the material, to lay his palm on her stomach. She titled her head to look at him, and his eyes were soft, and certain. “We can do this,” he repeated. She nodded.

\---

She wished for her mother more in the months that followed than she had since she was a girl in the dark of a bunker.

She was terrified.

At first, it was easy to distract her mind from reality. She had gotten her strength back again, could almost function like nothing was different, and nothing was going to change. But when she began to show, that grew a little more difficult. She was _pregnant_. She began to feel a flutter in her belly, and more.

This was _real_.

She was going to have a baby.

The boys were excited. It was fun to them. They asked a lot of questions, and suggested a lot of names.

Jyn lay in bed with her hands on her belly, and wondered about the kind of person her baby would be, and wondered if her mother had ever wondered that about her. She felt the baby move. She wondered if it was a girl, or a boy. She wondered if it would have her coloring, or Cassian’s. She wondered if the baby would grow up, and learn who her mother was.

She thought of the terrible, awful things that could happen to it before it grew up.

 _No,_ she thought.

She had trouble falling asleep at night.

She woke one night from a brief, fitful sleep to find that Cassian had shifted on the bed, and hiked up her shirt, and his hand was warm on her side. She could feel his breath, too, puffing softly against the stretch of her growing, swollen stomach. He was talking. She had learned a lot of Festian, and could try translating it. She didn’t. She let the cadence of the words wash over her, and she reached out to comb her fingers in his hair, allowing his voice to lull her back to sleep.

 _We can do this_ , he’d said.

Still.

She was afraid.

She grew bigger, and bigger, _and bigger_. Her back began hurting with the weight. She couldn’t see her toes.

She didn’t like how her body wasn’t her own.

She was big, and unwieldy, was unable to pick a wrench off the ground by herself, had to put a hand on Cassian’s shoulder to climb into the tub for a shower.

She was constipated _a lot._

She paced at night when she couldn’t sleep because of heartburn, because of her bladder, because of the acrobat in her belly. She paced the bedroom, and the kitchen. She peeked her head in Ras’s room, and Turi’s, and smiled at finding Turi reading a book under his sheets with a flashlight.

She woke up Cassian when she was tired of pacing, and hungry.

He made chilaquiles for her.

“I can make you other things,” he said, because she asked for chilaquiles every night.

“No,” she said.

She knew what she liked, thank you very much, and what her baby clearly liked, too. The midwife said it wouldn’t be much longer. Soon, she’d have a real, squalling baby to hold, and nurse, and protect. _Soon._ Back in bed, Jyn curled up against an already snoring Cassian, and, still, couldn’t fall asleep with a wiggling, hiccoughing baby inside her.

\---

It was the thick of winter when she began to have sudden, sharp contractions in the middle of dinner.

Chirrut was there, and Baze. They’d shown up on the doorstep that morning. It had been over a year since Jyn had seen them. She hadn’t even told them that she was pregnant. Somehow, Chirrut had known.

She was in labor all night.

Light was just beginning to fall in soft, narrow beams from the skylight when he was born. Her _son_. He was a red, squalling thing. In a haze, she saw the shape of him, and her heart was hammering in her throat, and it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. She was sobbing when the labor was done at last, and they gave him to her, when the midwife gently handed her this person that she’d just _made_.

“Cassian,” she said, crying. “Cassian, _look_.”

“He’s beautiful, mi amor,” Cassian said, and his voice was rough.

She nodded.

He stroked the black, downy hair that capped the baby’s pink head with a finger.

She was exhausted, and overwhelmed, and she couldn’t take her eyes off this new, tiny person. Her baby. He was a piece of her, and a piece of Cassian, and he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

\---

The boys were eager to pile into the room after they’d cleaned up the baby and cleaned up Jyn. Ras pressed into Jyn’s side, and Turi clambered up onto the bed, and their dark, matching curly-haired heads bent over the baby. They began to pepper her with questions: why was he squinting, and what was his name, and why did he have fur on his ears.

“You had fur on your ears when you were born,” Ras said.

“No, I didn’t,” Turi said.

“Did, too.”

“Did not!”

“Did, too. I remember. You looked like a big, funny-shaped lump of dough with fur on your ears.”

“Papa!”

“Boys,” Cassian said.

“You’re going to look after him, aren’t you?” Jyn asked, looking at Ras, and at Turi, and they quieted. Ras was twelve, and Turi was going to be nine in a couple of weeks. They were children, but they wouldn’t be for much longer. “You’re such good brothers. You’ll be good big brothers to him, won’t you?”

“I will,” Ras said.

“Me, too,” Turi said, and he bent his head to kiss the baby.

“I knew I could count on you,” Jyn said.

“If you haven’t picked a name yet, can I pick a name?” Ras asked.

“We have a name,” Cassian said.

“His name is Galen,” Jyn said, glancing at Cassian. She smiled. “Galen Kay Andor.”

“What?”

She looked at where K-2 stood in the doorway.

“I . . .” He stared.

“How many times have you saved my life?” Cassian asked. “He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. He should know that from the start.”

“Seventeen.”

“What?”

“If you are referring to specific, direct incidents, I have saved your life seventeen times,” K-2 said.

“Exactly,” Cassian said.

“Is anyone going to tell me what this baby looks like?” Chirrut asked.

“It looks like a baby,” Baze said.

Ras took it upon himself at that point to describe in much more, truly _unnecessary_ detail what the baby looked like, including the fact that he had this gunk stuff in his hair, and that he had long fingernails, and that he was making fishy faces with his mouth.

\---

She would never tire of holding his gaze while he nursed. He stared up at her with bright, steady eyes, and it was a wonder. _He_ was a wonder. Cassian said he had her eyes, had her father’s eyes. In every other way, he took after Cassian. She had a feeling that he’d grow up to look exactly like Cassian, and it made her smile every time she thought it. She wouldn’t have him any other way.

“Do you want to know a secret?” she asked him.

He blinked.

“I love you, my little man.” She smiled. “My little Cassian. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

\---

Someone was shaking her. “I’m sleeping,” she muttered, tightening her hold on Cassian. After a moment, she realized. If she was cuddling against Cassian, who was shaking her? She frowned, and turned her head, blinking at the sleep in her eyes.

The shape of her son’s lanky, awkward frame was outlined by moonlight.

“Turi?”

“There’s a man at the door who’s asking for you,” he said.

She rubbed her face. Her gaze moved past him to the bright gray light that shone in the skylight. The moon was hanging high in the sky. “It’s the middle of the night.” She frowned. He hadn’t had a nightmare. Surely. He was eighteen. He was past the age of crawling into her bed to snuggle with her.

“There’s a man at the door, Ma.”

She blinked.

“He says he needs to speak to you.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “He kept his hood up.”

It got through her muddled, sleepy mind. There was a man at the door. It was the middle of the night, and there was a man at the door, and he was wearing a hood, and asking for her. There was a stranger at the door of her quiet, sequestered home on her quiet, sequestered planet in the middle of the night, and _he was asking for her_. She scrambled to sit up, and smacked at Cassian to get up, too.

\---

The ship rose through the sky. “ _Please._ ” It shot off into the night, and became a speck in the distance, and was gone. She was left to stare tearfully at a blanket of quiet, sparkling stars. “Please come back.” Her voice was so small, so broken.

She was such a tiny little thing.

Jyn knelt in front of her.

Rey didn’t take her gaze off the stars, though.

Gently, Jyn touched her dirty, tear-stained cheek, and turned her face from the sky, bringing her gaze to earth. To Jyn. Her eyes were big, and glassy, and begging.

“He’s going to come back, isn’t he?”

“No,” Jyn said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I know you want him to.”

“He _has_ to.”

She glanced over Rey’s head at Cassian. His face was expressionless. She knew what he was thinking, though.

“ _Please_ ,” Rey said, tearful.

She took Rey’s hand. “I know it hurts,” she said. “I lost my parents when I was just a little older than you. People took my father away from me. It hurt so much. Sometimes, it _still_ hurts. It feels like there’s a hole in you, and the more you feel it, the bigger it gets, and it feels like you’re caving in. I _know._ Do you know what I do? To make it hurt a little less? Do you want to know what I do?” She held Rey’s gaze.

“What?”

“I hold it closed.” She hugged her torso. “I do it just like this. You have to hold it very tightly.”

Rey wrapped her thin, spindly little arms around her stomach.

“I hold it like that until it doesn’t feel so bad,” Jyn said. “It can be hard. If you need help, I can help you.” She paused. “Do you need help right now?”

She nodded.

“Okay.” She let her knees fall to the ground, and reached for Rey. “I’ll help you.” She hugged her. “I’ll hold you.”

“I want him to come back.”

“I know.”

“It still hurts,” Rey whispered, and there was a tremor in her voice.

“I know,” Jyn said. “But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep holding on, okay?” She pressed her cheek to the top of Rey’s head. “We’ll get through this,” she murmured. “I promise. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

\---

She made herself small with them. She put on the clothes that Jyn gave her, and ate the food that Cassian put in front of her. She listened. But when they tried to talk to her, she gave nervous, monosyllabic replies. She was hesitant to play with Galen. They tried to make her feel at home, gave her Ras’s old room, and found old, forgotten toys for her. They showed her the fort that Cassian had built the boys. They took her to visit the castle. They offered to teach her to swim in the lake. Still. She was quiet.

At night, she’d sneak out to sit on the steps, and stare up.

\---

He came up behind Jyn when she was scrubbing the dishes from breakfast, wrapping his arms around her waist, and tilting his head to press a kiss to her neck.

“You’re going to scrub that plate into dust,” he said.

She ignored him.

He sighed. “Did you want him to stay on Takodana for the rest of his life?”

“No.”

“He’s wanted to be a pilot for _years_. It’ll be good for him. He’ll get the training at academy that he needs for a good, _legitimate_ career, and he’ll get to travel, and see the galaxy, and it won’t be because he’s fighting in a war. And he’ll be with his brother. And he’ll be _back_. He’ll come to visit. Ras comes back plenty, doesn’t he?”

“I’m allowed to be upset that my two-year-old has run off.”

“He’s eighteen.”

“I think I know how old my son is.”

“Two?”

“Yes.”

She felt him smile into her neck. “I know what would make you feel better,” he murmured.

“What?”

He began to sway against her.

“I don’t want to dance.”

“I think you want to dance.”

“I don’t.”

He pulled her hand from the soapy sink water, and tugged her away from the sink, and into his chest, trying to make her dance with him.

She put up half a fight. “I’m allowed to be sad that Turi’s grown up, and gone.”

“I never said you weren’t.”

“You’re making me dance with you.”

He twirled her.

“There isn’t music.”

He hummed.

She snorted. It encouraged him. He began to hum louder, and in imitation of a tune, and she couldn’t entirely smother her laughed when his humming suddenly reached a crescendo, and he tried to get her to twirl him.

From the table, there was a giggle.

He let out a load, exaggerated sigh, and let go of Jyn. “I didn’t want to dance with you anyway.” He glanced at the table. “I’ll dance with Rey.” He smiled. “You’ll dance with me, won’t you?”

Rey bit her lip.

“ _Please_?”

She nodded.

He grinned, and held out his hand with a flourish.

He placed one of her hands on his hip, and took the other, and began dancing her slowly around the kitchen. He started to hum. He twirled her. He tried to twirl himself under her arm. She giggled. He scooped her up, and lifted her high in the air, spinning her, and humming as loud as he could, moving his feet about in some silly show at a waltz. Rey’s head tipped back with laughter, and she couldn’t stop laughing, clutching at his shoulders, and trying to hum with him, laughing and laughing.

\---

They knew there were factions in the senate. They knew that loyalists to the Empire were around, were in hiding, were biding their time. They knew that everything wasn’t right in the galaxy. Still. They lived a life away from politics, from hidden loyalist enclaves, from the memory of the rebellion, and whispers of another.

Jyn wanted it to stay that way.

It couldn’t.

“How can we already be back here again?” she asked.

The tips of his fingers drew lazy, senseless designs on her back. Under her cheek, his heartbeat was a soft, steady sound. In the dark, it almost felt like she was lying on a cot in some distant, hidden base.

Galen had left with K-2.

He refused to bother with academy. He’d learned to fly from Cassian, and K-2, and Bodhi. His brothers had already both joined the resistance, and he wanted to help, too.

K-2 would look after him.

“I have a couple of contacts in the Borderlands,” Cassian murmured.

She knew what he meant to suggest. There wasn’t a reason for her to respond, because he knew what her response was. She grasped the crystal of her necklace, and wondered if this was simply what life was.

\---

It made her smile when she came out of the house, and saw the pair of them in the yard, sparring.

Chirrut had aged, but he moved with grace even now, teaching Jyn’s daughter to use the staff that he’d put in her hands. Rey was struggling to keep up with him. He rapped his staff to her fingers constantly, and stabbed at her feet, and thwacked her in the back, and he did it with a calm, cheerful demeanor.

“You are frustrated,” Chirrut said. “It cripples you. The more frustrated you allow yourself to become, the less focused you are.”

“I can’t control that,” Rey said, panting.

He spun, and struck her in the back of the legs. “Try.” He smiled.

She huffed.

Jyn had never told Chirrut who Rey was.

Somehow, he knew.

It didn’t matter who she was. They had made a promise to keep her secret, and keep her safe, and they had. They _would_. No matter what, they’d protect her. It didn’t even matter that they’d promised, didn’t even matter who her father was. She was theirs now. Cassian was her father.

Jyn was her mother.

“She looks like you,” Baze said. He was seated by the side of the house, cleaning his blaster, and watching.

“She’s adopted,” Jyn said.

“It’s the way she walks. Holds her shoulders. She’s got your glare.”

"Maz says that, too."

"She's got your spirit," he said.

She glanced at him, and, smiling, she reached out a hand. He took it. Lately, she'd found herself missing Baze when he gone more than anyone. She didn't quite know why. She bent, and pressed a kiss to his temple.

\---

She found Cassian deep into the woods, sitting, and helping to dig a hole in the ground with a stick.

He had a crown of flowers on his head.

Lyra had one, too.

She was on her knees to dig the trench, and had her tongue held between her teeth, and dirt on her cheeks, and her elbows, and the pads of her feet. She’d lost her shoes. She loved to abandon her shoes, and peel off her socks, too, and Cassian had proven entirely unable to enforce keeping either on.

It amused Jyn endlessly.

He used to claim that Jyn had coddled the boys, that she let them get away with way too much. Now look at him. He couldn’t manage to discipline their granddaughter even _a little._

Lyra took after her father. She was three, and, already, she reminded Jyn of Ras when she’d found him. She had the very same dark hair, and made the very same faces, smiled like Ras, and laughed like him, and it made Jyn smile, too, every single time she heard the sound. Lyra did have her mother’s green, freckled eyes, and cute, upturned nose, and she was quieter like her mother.

Both of them were more like characters in a storybook to her, though, than parents.

She understood that they were heroes, and in the resistance, and she knew the story. She knew they’d met in the resistance, and fallen in love, and decided to have a baby, and that, someday, they’d be able to come home again, and they’d all live happily every after.

Mostly, it was true.

Jyn couldn’t exactly explain what an “accident” was to a three-year-old.

Or that happily ever after wasn’t a guarantee.

“What is this?” Jyn asked.

“It’s a _moat_!” Lyra said, beginning to scoop up dirt with her hand.

“Why are we building a moat?”

“The fairies can’t get here without a moat,” Cassian said.

“I see.” She sat. “I got a message from Bluewood," she said. "He heard from Senoti. He got the information on our friend, and sent it sealed. I opened it, and passed it along to Spinetree.”

He nodded.

Even around Lyra, they’d taken to talking in code. It felt somehow like they were keeping her safer if she didn’t even hear the words. She was a _baby_. Jyn wondered at times if they were wrong to continue to help the resistance while she was in their care. It wasn’t as simple as that, though.

She drew her gaze up from Lyra’s pink, dirty cheeks, and looked at Cassian.

There was age in his eyes.

“Here,” Lyra said, and she took a moment to look around them, and to choose a stick, thrusting it at Jyn.

Jyn began helping them dig.

Cassian’s stick hit Jyn’s stick. “That’s my spot.” He knocked her stick away from the corner.

“Bully,” she said.

It was quiet.

She dug dutifully for a minute, wedged her stick in the nest of a root, and got it angled, and flicked a chunk of dirt at Cassian’s face.

\---

He put a hand on his shoulder, and leaned over her to look at the datapad with her. He’d pull up the specs for the transformer, and, at a touch of his finger, they projected into a holopic. “I need one with the F9 fuse,” he said, pointing at fuse on the holopic.

She nodded.

He swiped a kiss to her cheek, and straightened. “You're the best.” He was supposed to meet a contact at the castle this afternoon.

“Love you, too,” she said, speaking with a mouthful of oatmeal.

Rey chose that moment to tromp her way down the stairs. “Hi, Papa,” she said, leaning up to peck a kiss to his cheek when she passed him. "Bye, Papa." Jyn heard the door to the house open, and close. Rey came into the kitchen, and circled the mess on the floor that Lyra sat in the center of, scooping the last of the oatmeal from the pot into a bowl. She came to sit by Jyn at the table.

“I need you to watch Lyra today,” Jyn said.

“Why?”

“I have to pick up a part for the starship that your father is repairing.”

“Can I pick up the part?”

Jyn was in the middle of drinking the last of her oatmeal from the bowl. “By yourself?” she said, pausing. “It’s a bit of a flight.”

“I can fly as well as you,” Rey said. “Better. It’s just to pick up a part, right?”

“Right,” Jyn said.

“So.” She raised her eyebrows. “Can I?”

“I don’t . . .”

“Mama,” Rey said, imploring. “Come on. I’m _nineteen_. I can fly a starship by myself, and pick up a part from a vendor. I’ve done it with you before, and with Papa. Tons. What do you think is going to happen?”

"It's a trip off Takodana."

"So?"

"Rey."

"Mama."

Jyn pursed her lips.

" _Please_?"

“Fine.”

“Yes!” Rey grinned, and stood up slightly to smack a kiss to Jyn’s cheek.

“Your papa’s already spoken with the vendor about the part, and the price. The info on everything is listed right here. If the ass tries to change it, just walk away. It needs to have an F9 fuse, which looks like this.” Jyn pulled up the spec that Cassian had shown her. “If it doesn’t have that, walk away. Guys like this think they can pull one over on the honest. If he tries, just walk.”

“I know the drill,” Rey said, taking the datapad.

“I’m not sure I like this.”

“But you’re letting me do it anyway, and that’s what’s important,” Rey said, grinning. “I’ll radio you when I get there, and when I’m heading back with the part. You’ll be in the loop the _whole_ time.”

“Mmm,” Jyn said.

“Okay,” Rey said. “Where’s the part? I’ll head out as soon as I finish my oatmeal.”

“I want to check the coordinates on the ship before you go.”

“Sure.”

Jyn heaved a sigh at her, and rose to her feet. “You’re going north to the Inner Rim,” Jyn said. She smiled at Lyra when Lyra held up a messy charcoal drawing for Jyn to see. “Destination is a junkyard of a planet. Jakku. You get there, get the part, and get out again. Got it?” She raised her eyebrows at Rey.

“Got it,” Rey said, cheerful. “Relax, Mama. You’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.”

**fin.**


End file.
